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I have been ripped apart.
Before, I was one fully functioning adult. Now, I am two ill-formed halves of myself, a pair of blundering twins left to make sense of the life they are forced to share. We argue all the time.
I can tell you the exact day that the division occurred. 12th September. Years ago.
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Up until what had happened, the drive had been uneventful. I’d been cruising on quiet motorways for a couple of hours, and I was enjoying the peace; it was a bright Sunday evening and there weren’t many cars on the road. I’d spent the weekend in my hometown, an unremarkable little place just east of London, hanging out with some of my oldest and most rarely seen friends, and although I’d had a brilliant time, my cheeks were beginning to ache from smiling too much and I was ready to be back in my own bed, in my own house, 200 miles north.
Thwip... thwip... thwip... thwip...
What is that? Is that my tyre? Okay, I need to pull over and-
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It had still been light out when it happened, but darkness had fallen quickly afterwards. I remember feeling that the flashing blue lights were too bright against my eyes. Dave, the off-duty paramedic who had stopped to help, had insisted that I call my next of kin, but I couldn’t speak, so he did the talking for me.
The constable’s name was eerily similar to my favourite author. He was saying something to me, but his words melted away into nothing as I stared at the fabric name badge stitched to the chest of his uniform, like it was an important clue hidden amidst the maelstrom of a fever dream.
When I finally got out of my car, I didn’t look at it. Instead, I turned my back on it and stared at the road stretching towards the North. The left lane was full of cars crawling along, bumper to bumper, bottle-necked because of me. The right lane was empty, save for me, Dave, the policemen and a couple of good Samaritans (or perhaps looky-loos). I glanced down at my feet and wondered how many feet had stood on this bit of tarmac in the middle of the A1, where nobody was supposed to tread. I wondered how many people were going to be late home because of me.
One of the policemen had somehow wrenched open the boot of my car to retrieve my backpack. He passed it to me, then led me to his police car. As I slumped into the passenger seat and he started up the engine, I looked out of the window so he wouldn’t notice that I’d started to cry again. That’s when I saw her. Me.
She was standing in the grass on the central reservation, a few metres away from my car. She was identical to me in almost every way – the same square face, the same messy brown hair, the same oversized hoodie. The only difference was that she seemed fed up – with one hand on her hip and the other raised in the air, she was glaring at me with utter incredulity, like she thought I was making a big deal out of nothing. My gaze slid from her to my own reflection in the car window. My eyes were wet, and my lips were trembling. I was changed.
As the police car pulled away, she threw her arms into the air in exasperation.
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The shockwaves of what had happened persisted for a long time afterwards.
When I awoke the following morning, my arms were still shaking uncontrollably, and tears welled in my eyes every few minutes. My body ached all over, finally experiencing the pain of the hard impact that my mind hadn’t allowed me to feel the evening before.
How are you supposed to talk about something like this?
I was in a car crash. I am blameless. Oh, woe is me, caught in the ethereal storm of an unknowable universe.
I caused a car crash. Full accountability, but it implies there were others involved and that I might have blood on my hands.
I smashed my car up. Yeah.
Because I’d been alone when it’d happened, it was difficult to convey the horror of the event to my friends and family. All they knew was what I could tell them, and that wasn’t much – just that my tyre had blown out while I was doing 70 miles per hour on the motorway, and that I’d lost control of the car. Merely reciting that watered-down sentence would cause me to tremble and cry. So, I didn’t talk about it.
They didn’t feel the awful bang as the tyre blew or hear that ominous noise as my car juddered across the rumble strip, heading towards grass and trees.
They didn’t see the road and sky blur into one as I yanked the steering wheel as hard as I could and went spinning into the fast lane, snapping my brakes and praying to god that I didn’t die or kill somebody.
They didn’t have to sit there in a silent moment of stunned impotence, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened and how I ended up sideways on the motorway.
Everybody assumed the whole experience was nothing more than an inconvenience, and a minor one at that – no visible injuries and a good pay-out from the insurance company. Nice one!
They didn’t notice the deep, bleeding gash that had been carved through my psyche.
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The weeks after the crash were thick and impassable.
I went back to work. I saw friends. I retrieved my broken belongings from my smashed-up car. I used my four grand pay-out to buy a new car that I didn’t like as much as the smashed-up one. I tried to be an adult and get on with my life.
Though the physical pain had subsided, I began to realise that part of me was missing. Any confidence or self-assuredness that I’d once possessed had now evaporated – small sounds made me jump out of my skin and my heart would hammer randomly in moments of silence, alerting me to danger that would never arrive. I felt like I was only half of a person, the rubbish half with all the anxiety, self-hatred and frustration.
I was haunted by the memory of my ghost twin standing on the side of the road that night, glaring at me so scathingly. Had she been real, or just a stress-induced hallucination? I began to fear that in leaving her behind on the roadside, I had left behind the rational part of myself.
Driving had become traumatic. Even if it was just a fifteen-minute commute into the office, I would feel sick in the hours leading up to it and I would shake for a long time after parking up. I would come home from work, hang my car keys on the hook, and curl up on the couch in the foetal position, heart racing, hands and legs shaking, my stupid, broken brain convinced that I was still behind the wheel and in danger. No matter how loudly I yelled at my brain that I was safe, it wasn't convinced, and my body was permanently on high alert.
“So, this is what trauma feels like,” I muttered to myself.
“Oh, shut up. You’re not traumatised.”
The unexpected voice toppled me off the couch. I scrambled to a sitting position, only to see my ghost twin leaning against the mantlepiece, languidly fiddling with the mis-matched candles and colourful knick-knacks which were sitting atop it.
My mouth fell open. So, she was real.
She glanced at me and took my silence as an opportunity to continue her train of thought.
“Seriously, you’re such an attention-seeker. It wasn’t even a bad crash! The whole thing lasted like, what? Ten seconds?”
“It felt like longer. Time sort of-”
“'Time slowed down', yeah, whatever. So dramatic.”
“It was dramatic!”
She smirked. “Honestly, you need to get a grip. You didn’t crash into anyone, you didn’t have to go to hospital... everything worked out fine! Everybody’s sick of listening to you banging on about it!”
“You’re making it sound like I’m overreacting.”
“You are overreacting.”
I walked upstairs, got into bed, and pulled a pillow over my face.
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And just like that, our paths were entwined. Now that my ghost twin and I had made first contact, she wouldn’t leave me alone. Every time I got into my car and steeled myself for the journey ahead, she’d be in the passenger seat with some smart-arse retort. Every time I loaded up a guided meditation video on YouTube, she’d be hovering behind me, calling me an anxious little snowflake. Every time I tossed and turned in bed until the early hours of the morning, tormented by the memory of the crash and fearing another nightmare, she’d be perched on the windowsill in the darkness, sneering at me.
The worst part was that everything she was saying was true. She was being horribly obnoxious about it, but she wasn’t wrong – I had let a small trauma spin out of control and mutate into a trembling anxiety that was swallowing every part of my life. As the months passed and her tyranny intensified, I found myself leaving the house less and less, working from home most days and shutting myself away from anybody who might notice that I was only half a person now, or perhaps an even smaller fraction.
In solitude, I was safe.
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It was early evening on a grey Wednesday, and I had just completed a rare day’s work in the office. I was sitting in rush hour traffic on Rawlings Way, rain pouring down, queuing to reach a roundabout. I knew that if I could summon the guts to get into the left lane, I could take the second exit to the A63, hit 70mph and be home in ten minutes. But if I wimped out and got into the right lane, I’d have to crawl through the congested Hessle Road, which would take way longer. It might feel safer, though.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I was convinced that my front left tyre had a puncture. Sure, the roads in Hull were lumpy and full of potholes, but what if that small noise and that gentle bump weren’t just because of the uneven road? What if the minute irregularities I could feel were due to a rapidly deflating tyre? I turned down the volume on the radio, listening closely to the gentle sound of my car’s tyres rolling over the tarmac at 5mph.
“There’s nothing wrong with your bloody tyre, and you know it.”
Oh yes, and my ghost twin was there, too.
I ignored her, levelling my shoulders and staring straight ahead. Was my car leaning to the left side? If my tyre was going down, was that a thing that would happen?
She sighed audibly. As always, she was deeply unimpressed with me.
I hummed discordantly in an effort to tune her out. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself driving down the A63 at 70mph, the deflating tyre wobbling, then blowing. I lose control of the car. I spin. I smash.
“Oh my god, your tyre is fine!”
“Would you be quiet?!” I snapped. “Just, for once, please shut up and let me do this.”
“All I’m saying is that if something happens, it won’t be because of an imaginary flat tyre, it’ll be because you’re so fucking anxious that you can’t concentrate on the road.”
“Shut up!”
She was right though. I was acting crazy.
As the cars in front of me started to move and I approached the entrance to the roundabout, I slid into the left lane. I peeped, creeped, then roared into the roundabout. I passed the first exit, indicated, then took the second exit. As I gained speed, I shifted into third gear, then fourth. Ahead of me, the road bent to the right and would lead me onto the terrifying A63. Slightly closer on the left was a junction with a small road leading to a retail estate with a spacious car park.
Ahead? Left? Ahead? Left?
Left.
Shaking, I pulled into a parking space in the retail estate and turned off the engine. I sobbed.
My ghost twin was uncharacteristically quiet. She didn’t have to say anything.
I knew.
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The night it all came to a head, the two of us were caught in a storm.
Rain was hammering against my car, blurring my view of the motorway and forcing my windscreen wipers to work overtime. My entire body was as rigid as a rock, hunched over the wheel, knuckles white, armpits sweating – my standard driving position.
Why did I think this would be a good idea? I should’ve gotten the train, but no, I just had to prove a point.
I’d been driving for almost two hours and soon I would be at my destination – my brother’s new house in a quiet Lancashire valley. Since my ghost twin’s intrusion into my life, I had become something of a hermit, and so I saw the decision to visit my brother as an opportunity for a display of normality. He’s the nearest family I’ve got. If I can do this drive, maybe that’ll mean I’m not crazy anymore.
But in the middle of the storm’s rage, I was regretting my decision. My ghost twin was irritating whenever she was around, but that night her presence felt intolerable – perhaps she was going harder than usual, perhaps my fuse was at its shortest, but whatever the reason, that night was different.
“Bloody hell, you’d think you were driving through the apocalypse, the way you’re acting! It’s literally just rain. A little drizzle, and you’re being such a baby! You seriously need to grow the hell up. It’s been years and you’ve made literally no progress. Zero! What the hell is wrong with you? I swear to god, it’s like you’re...”
Her insults faded into the background and static filled my ears. Time was slowing down.
I swung the wheel to the left and the car juddered across the rumble strip onto the hard shoulder. I yanked the handbrake up and turned off the engine. I could sense rage vibrating through my skin and pulsing heavily in the air between us.
“Get out,” I said, through clenched teeth.
For a moment, she was stunned. When she did finally respond, she seemed smaller than before.
“We’re on the side of the motorway.”
“Get. Out.”
“It’s too dangerous to get out. It’s pitch-black!”
I didn’t realise how heavy my breathing had become until the thread of my sanity snapped and I leapt out of the car. Intoxicated by fury, I marched around the front of my car, the wind and rain whipping at my face, pulled open the passenger door and wrestled that bitch out of my car.
I don’t know how long we fought for. It was feral. When I threw her onto the tarmac, I could’ve just left her there and driven away, but I didn’t. I remember kicking, then punching, and then my hands were squeezing her neck and finally, finally we were getting somewhere...
But then her eyes locked onto mine. Panicked, crying. Mine.
I let her body fall back onto the rain-soaked tarmac. She wasn’t moving. Playing dead, probably.
My breathing was ragged, and my knuckles were throbbing. I’d never fought anybody before, and I’d been unprepared for the exhaustion that followed. Carefully, I lowered myself to a cross-legged position with my back to her, instantly soaking my jeans on the wet road. None of the motorists flying by at 70 miles per hour seemed to pay us any notice. Perhaps they couldn’t see us in the darkness.
The adrenaline surge was overwhelming. Something big had just happened. Coherent thought seemed impossible, and yet I knew that my next move was extremely important – it would shape the rest of my life.
After a while, I glanced over my shoulder. She still hadn’t moved. Achingly, I stood up. Who knew that fist fighting would be so painful?
“I know you’re pretending.”
Her eyes flicked open. I noticed that the sclera of her left eye had turned blood red, and I felt a shameful surge of victory.
For the first time since she’d barged into my life uninvited, I was in charge. The thought crossed my mind that I could leave her there, alone and bleeding on the side of the motorway. It’d be so easy. I could just step over her, get into my car and drive to my brother’s place, finally a complete person.
But I knew that was a fantasy. I was most definitely not a complete person. If I did abandon my ghost twin, she’d be waiting for me at my brother’s house, or at my own house a couple of days later, or at a fucking Starbucks a week later. I could hit her, kick her, kill her a hundred times over and it wouldn’t make a difference. She wasn’t some unwanted guest in my life, she was a part of my own consciousness that had accidentally become displaced. I didn’t need to banish her, I needed to absorb her.
She sat up and spat a glob of blood onto the tarmac. Pathetic.
“Things are going to change,” I said, using my best impression of an authoritarian. She stared at her feet, motionless and void of energy. Good.
“Firstly, you need to stop swearing at me all the time. Who the hell speaks to people like that? It’s disrespectful. Secondly, stop monologuing while I’m driving. It’s really distracting. And thirdly, so long as you’re polite about it...” I took a deep breath. “I will listen to you and take on your critiques. We’re going to respect each other. We’re going to be a team. Okay?”
She kept on staring at her feet like a moody teenager, giving no indication that she’d heard me.
“Okay?” I repeated.
“Yes, okay!” she hissed, keeping her eyes on the ground.
As I scrutinised her bloodied face, I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking, which was ridiculous – her face was, after all, my face. I desperately hoped that she was beginning to see reason, but supposed that there was an equal chance that she was biding her time, plotting ways to overthrow me and become the dominant half of us again. Given enough time, she’d probably come up with a plan much more elegant than simply beating the shit out of me.
Whatever this game was, it was going to last a long, long time.
I have been ripped apart.