For a moment, try to forget about what’s written in my file. The newspapers are wrong. The talking heads on the television don’t know what they’re talking about either.
For the record, I am not crazy.
I did not kidnap, kill, or otherwise harm Elena Monahan. I love Elena with all my heart and soul. I do understand how everyone would think I’d be involved with her disappearance though. I’m well-aware of how the situation looks. A big disheveled looking dude talking to himself in a woman’s voice claiming to be the missing woman in question. I see how it looks from the outside and I don’t blame anyone for suspecting me.
The truth of the matter is Elena lives inside me and it’s driving the both of us crazy. Imagine having a voice inside your head constantly fighting you for control of your body. No, I’m not schizophrenic. This isn’t the voice of God or the Devil, this is Elena Monahan speaking with my vocal chords. We’re in constant war with each other and not on purpose. Picture a game of musical chairs for a moment. The music stops and the final two players jump at the last chair. Both end up taking half a seat but neither is fully on board and so a winner cannot be declared. Elena cannot get up since she has nowhere to go. I’d give up my position if only I could.
You’d think being in a constant struggle with each other would make us hate each other but you’d be wrong. I absolutely love Elena. However, sharing a body with her isn’t exactly the best situation either. In fact, everything which happened to us only happened because I was absolutely, insanely in love with her and I couldn’t give her up. But that isn’t where I’d like to start getting into the details.
If my old therapist’s notes are in there, you’ll know I sought help for my depression only a few months ago. I needed help in coping with Elena and I’s breakup. Although, with the knowledge I have now, I know now it wasn’t a real breakup. Elena has already disappeared by then. Only no one knew about it until recently.
Prior to my visits to my therapist, Elena and I had been dating for a few months. There was a morning I texted her about our plans to meet up later in the day and I never got a response. Figuring she was busy with work, I didn’t text her again until right before we were supposed to meet up. When I called her, she didn’t answer her phone. I called several more times and with no response, I began to worry. Finally, after it reached the evening, I thought something was wrong and drove over to her house.
When I arrived, her car was parked in the driveway. The hood was cold to the touch. There were no lights on inside the house. There were no signs of any activity either. Knocking on the door didn’t yield a response either. Being the kind of person to assume the worse, I thought she had gotten sick or hurt. Giving it once last attempt to communicate with her before calling the police, I tried the front and back doors and some of the windows and couldn’t get inside. The police arrived ten minutes after I made the call. Two officers met me at the end of her driveway, a younger looking officer with an older one accompanying him.
“Are you the one who called us?” the younger officer asked.
“Yeah, this is my girlfriend’s house. She hadn’t answered her calls or texts the whole day. I don’t know if she’s inside the house and she hurt. She isn’t the type to ignore messages or calls either. We had a date tonight and I was worried so I came over to see if everything was okay,” I explained.
The older officer gave me a sideways glance before responding.
“You sure she wants to see you?” he asked. The questions oozed with skepticism so thick it made me want to punch him in the throat.
“We were on good terms. I have no reason to think we aren’t. This is the best relationship I’ve ever been in,” I replied. I held back the desire to give him an attitude. Getting pissy with the cop wasn’t going to win me any points.
“When was the last time you saw her?” the younger officer asked. He seemed to be bothered with the older officer as well.
“Last night, we went to dinner and I dropped her off afterward,” I answered. The younger officer took notes. The older one continued the onslaught of questions regarding the night before.
What was she wearing?
Does she have any physical marks or tattoos?
Do you know her social security number?”
“Do you know her primary physician?*
With each question, it felt more like the officers were wasting time. Granted, I understood it was all procedural and paperwork needs to be done but there was no sense of urgency in the officers.
“Can we please try to get inside the house now? If she’s sick or injured, we’re wasting valuable time,” I asked the officers trying to move the process along. The older officer rolled his eyes.
“Son, we got a problem here. We don’t have permission to enter the house. There’s no sign of foul play. Your girlfriend not answering her phone for a couple of hours isn’t a cause for concern.,” the older officer explained.
“Give us some time and we’ll have this all sorted out,” the younger officer said.
An hour passed before another squad car pulled up. An officer presented them with an authorization to enter the home. The older officer read over the warrant and chuckled.
“You are Elena Monahan’s boyfriend, correct?” he asked. A shit-eating grin ran across his face.
“Yes, I don’t know how many time I need to confirm that with you. Do you want to see my phone? Do you want to read my text messages with her?” I shot back at the officer.
“Her husband gave us permission to enter the house,” the older officer responded. His shit-eating grin widened until the range of unbelievably punchable.
“What do you mean husband?” I asked the younger officer.
The older officer jumped back in.
“Read it and weep,” he said pointing to the area on the page with the name, Daniel Renshaw next to where it mentioned the owner of the home. Elena’s name was right beneath his.
“Came up on the records for this address. We contacted him and its legitimate. Daniele Renshaw is your girlfriend’s husband and owner of the house,” the younger officer explained. He rolled his eyes at the older officer and offered a pitying smile.
Let me tell you. To say I was shocked was the understatement of the century. We’d been together for nearly six months and Elena never mentioned ever being married. She never wore a ring. There weren’t any pictures of her and another man in the house. Never even mentioned having a family. I didn’t know what to think in the moment.
“Officer Bennette and I will be entering the home now. Please stay here until we come out. Don’t go anywhere either. If you see someone, just give a holler,” the older officer said. He signaled Bennette toward the house. Both walked up to the front door and knocked. The older officer announced himself to the empty house. With a nod, Bennette kicked down the door. Both disappeared inside only to come out minutes later.
“No one’s home. Officer Haynes is going to file a report now so we can get this process rolling along right away,” Officer Bennette said. He padded me on the shoulder and walked toward his car.
“What’s Haynes problem, anyway? Ever since you guys got here he’s been acting like a real dick,” I asked Bennette.
“Don’t take it personal. He’s like that all the time. He means no harm. Just suspects everyone all the time,” Officer Bennette answered dismissing my question.
“Well, what happens next?”
“We’re going to verify the information you’ve given us then we’re going to upload it to a few databases and generate some bulletins in high traffic locations and hopefully we’ll get a hit,” Officer Bennette explained.
There weren’t any hits on Elena since I reported her missing months ago. You have no idea how damned insignificant I’ve felt since. All I could do was answer the officer’s questions.
She had green eyes, long blonde hair, and no identifying marks or tattoos.
No, I didn’t know what she wore that day.
No, I didn’t know her social security number.
I don’t know who her primary physician is.
We didn’t have any recent photographs with each other either. There was nothing else I could do to help them find her.
The police combed through the house and found nothing indicating a struggle happened. There were no signs of forced entry either. Nothing telling them foul play was involved. Her clothes, purse, and toiletries were inside the house and left untouched. It seemed like Elena had left the house with nothing in hand, locked the door behind her, and then simply marched off into the unknown.
All train and bus terminals were notified. Search parties were called in and the area around the house and the neighborhood were searched. Not a trace of her was found. Daniel was ruled out almost immediately. He lived several states away and could account for his activities for the past three days before Elena vanished. Hundreds of people at a real estate agent convention could verify he’d been giving speeches and running workshops. After the event, he took a six-hour flight to Hawaii.
Who else is left in this equation but me? I called in the disappearance. I’d been the last person according to the police who had seen her. Yet, I was as clean as anyone else was in the case. Perhaps its why I wasn’t arrested early on. Sure, they kept bothering me and checking into me but they found nothing. There is nothing to find about me. I had nothing to do with her initial disappearance.
After a few months, the case went cold. Not that it was hot to begin with. The police moved on to other cases and the woman I loved was forgotten about it.
As for me, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I drove past the house everyday hoping to see the light on inside telling me she was home. With each passing day, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and this coldness would come over me. All at once, I’d feel angry no one, including myself, could do anything about this. Then my thoughts would turn to Elena purposefully leaving everything behind to start anew. It didn’t make sense. Rationality couldn’t override the emotional turmoil. Knowing everything which could be done had been done wasn’t enough. With no body, no trace of her anywhere, nothing could be done.
There was nothing for me to do except move on. It wasn’t easy though. I wouldn’t forget about her. I couldn’t. I celebrated our one year anniversary alone in my apartment. Instead of buying flowers, going out to dinner, and giving each other presents, I sat on the couch and watched television until the bottle of rum was drained and I passed out.
Nights like those were common then. Getting out of bed was miserable. Morning after morning, waking up hung over and hating myself were routine. It reached a point to where I opened my eyes one morning and stared at the ceiling for a very long time. By the time I realized what happened, it was already evening. I’d spent the whole day in bed drifting in and out of sleep because I didn’t want to deal with reality. While this wasn’t the norm, it did happen enough to remember feeling the emptiness inside each morning.
When I couldn’t sleep anymore, I drank more rum until I passed out only to awaken covered in dried vomit. What scared me most was the disappointment I hadn’t choked to death in my sleep.
Suicide started creeping into my thoughts. I thought about it at least once a day. Only reason I hadn’t tried it was because I didn’t want my mother to bury another son. Giving her the satisfaction of saying I’d killed both her children is the kind of ammunition she would have loved to have had. Being the center of attention was her greatest pleasure in life and the sympathy it would have generated would have made her happier than a pig rolling around in shit.
Day and night became meaningless. There was nothing I wanted to do. Everything sort of stopping having meaning. There was no reason to shave, short, or brush my teeth. I barely left the apartment anymore unless it was to go to the liquor store. My refrigerator was nothing but condiments. There wasn’t a reason to push myself to stop drinking either. The problems were still there and the alcohol stopped me from having to care about them.
I was empty inside. Completely void of care for myself or the world around me. It was a scary feeling. I wanted nothing in the world except to feel again yet I didn’t want to endure the pain that comes with it. Something inside me begged to feel again in a way I never imagined. I’d hurt myself. I wanted to feel the sting of pain. Feel the adrenaline rush through me. The endorphins made it feel so nice. It made it all better. Deep down in the pit of my stomach, there was a thirst I needed to quench and I sated it with poison.
Insomnia consumed me then. Nights became marathon sessions of tossing and turning in bed. One moment, I’d be unbearably hot, drenched in sweat, and chugging glasses of water. Other times, no matter how many fan or how low I set the air conditioner, the room boiled like a sauna in the lowest threshold of Hell. I couldn’t tell if it was hot flashes or the infection of alcohol wracking my body. Maybe it was stress, depression, and alcohol each taking turns in destroying me from the inside out. It didn’t take long for me to reach out and ask for help.
Finding help was easy. I went online, found a therapist, and went in for a useless talk. We talked about how I felt and she told me what I already knew about myself. Of course, I wasn’t a healthy person. Physically or mentally. I hadn’t properly coped with Elena’s disappearance either. She wanted to guide me through the steps of grieving. What a load of crap!
She said I had too much on my mind all the time about the rest of the world and I was letting those problems overwhelm my own sense of a peaceful reality. Could you blame me? With the world descending into chaos all around us, terrorism, babies being gunned down in school, and the fucking blowhard getting elected into the presidency, who could live in this turmoil?
She was right about that one. I’ve never worried about the starving children in Africa, the genocide of homosexuals in other countries, and the political establishment of my own country tearing down the foundations of freedom. It was something I paid attention to but didn’t quite let it bother me so much. With Elena’s disappearance, apparently, I’d focused so much on the rest of the world, to not have to cope with her loss, that I’d practically taken everything to heart and driven myself into a state of complete and utter misery.
I needed to get straight with myself. Maybe the therapist was right about me. Maybe the money was worth spending on getting told I needed to relax a little bit. I was already on the right track with starting to worry only about myself and allowing myself to feel the pain in the loss of the person who I only ever truly love and cared for.
The therapist recommended counseling sessions and told me to consider taking up some hobbies. It sounded good at the time and I considered it. Maybe even go back to school for a while even though I didn’t like school. I’ve always been more of a hands-on kind of person when it came to learning. Reading, writing, and math didn’t work for me like it did for other people. The world needs engineers, doctors, and lawyers but someone still needs to dig the ditches and fix the overflowing toilets.
The therapist told me about other methods of coping and group sessions. I said I’d look into it but I never did. It all felt so overwhelming to make decision about such personal matters. I didn’t want to talk about Elena in front of a bunch of strangers. I didn’t want them to know about her going missing and me having no idea she was married. I didn’t want anyone to think I had anything to do with it.
I thanked the therapist for the session and said I would follow up on what she said. I set up another appointment but never made it.
Out in the parking lot, before starting the engine on the car, I took three huge pulls of rum and Coke from a bottle I had stashed in the backseat. The fifteen-minute drive home turned into more than an hour with the downpour of rain.
This would be the last time I felt anywhere close to normal again in my life.
Submitted June 15, 2017 at 12:24AM by Human_Gravy http://ift.tt/2rsqe4G libraryofshadows
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