“I know. It’s terrible, right?” Some woman says from beside me, horror stricken as she gapes at the body, probably a first timer in the dead body department. She’s probably in her forties, her black hair obviously dyed, and she’s wearing too much pink blush that matches her shirt that says Jesus Rocks! I actually think she’s knocked on my door a few times to try and convert me to something or anotherism. It actually happens a lot and my mom always sends them away with a smile and a wave as if she’s glad they stopped by even if she never goes to church. “Fairfield’s such a good community… this stuff shouldn’t happen here.”

“And what? Stuff like this should happen in other places because they aren’t good communities.” I say in a low voice.

“That’s not what I was saying at all,” she gasps, offended.

“That’s exactly what you were saying.”

The woman shakes her head in revulsion, and then she inches to the side away from me. I focus on the scene in front of me. Sydney looks so peaceful, like she’s asleep, only the blood shatters the illusion, paints it red with the nightmare that this is a reality. That she’s dead. Her shirt torn. Skin as pale as the snow. The white button down shirt, tied at the bottom, splattered with blood. The white shirt that’s missing a top button... a little heart button… I step back so suddenly that I bump into the person behind me. Muttering an apology, my eyes stay fixed on Sydney.

It’s just a coincidence. I must have found the button and picked it up before all this happened. I’m being set up. I wait for Lily to chime in with whatever she has to say on the matter, but she’s still inside my mind. Everything’s still. My body. My mind. It seems wrong, yet right. I seem empty, yet I seem whole at the same time.

Men in uniforms walk over to the body with a sheet in hand. They drape it over the body, cover it up from the wandering eyes. My heart slams against my rib cage as they start to scan the ground for evidence and I decide it’s my cue to leave. Turning away from the body, I squeeze my way to the back of the crowd and dash across the street to my car. Impatient to get away from here, I dump my purse out on the ground and search through the contents until I find my keys. Then I toss everything back into bag and hop into my car, revving up the engine.

“This can’t be happening… The button isn’t real,” I whisper as I push the car into drive, watching the lights across the street flash, flash, flash. Feel the rain falling… let the building burn… help me… Don’t leave me behind. Please don’t let me die. I’m sorry. A loud bang, and I walk up to the dead body, slowly pulling the buttons I’ve counted for years off his shirt, one by one. And with each one, I get a sick gratification from it.

“Good girl,” she whispers. “I knew you’d eventually come around.”

With my foot on the brake, I stuff my hand inside my pocket and retrieve the heart shaped button, stained with a dot of blood. The red one I’m not sure of who it belongs too, but I have a feeling that person might be lying somewhere in a parking lot, too. I should throw both of them out the window. Get rid of the evidence. The problem is I can’t. I attempt to several times, but my obsessive compulsive anxiety disorder is stopping me. I end up putting them back into my pocket and opening up the car door to throw up in the parking lot. My stomach is pretty much empty at this point and I mostly just dry heave. When I’m finished, I shut the door, ignoring the tears streaming down my face and drive away, wondering what the hell I did last night. Wondering if maybe Lily got too out of control and finally went through with her dark thoughts.

Maybe the end of Maddie is nearing.

Maybe she never existed at all.

Maddie

I think I’m paranoid. Insane. Joined the crazy train and there’s no getting off. Not after what happened with Sydney. I can’t stop thinking about it, no matter how much it makes me ill. I’ve been trying to text Bella for the last day, hoping she could give me some insight to what I was up to, but she hasn’t responded to my messages yet.

“Blood on my arms. Buttons. That doesn’t mean anything. I could have been drunk, got into a fight or something, and simply passed out. Or maybe it was River’s blood all over me,” I say to myself as I pace my room, back and forth, back and forth, Lily chattering away in my head. She’s growing stronger with each passing hour and Maddie is desperately trying to hang on to reality. “I didn’t kill anyone. There’s no way.” Lily laughs and I let out a scream through my teeth in aggravation.

It’s been a day since Sydney died. A day since I brought home that button like a psychopath collecting a souvenir. A day since I woke up in the freezer with blood all over my body. And about an hour since the news announced the murder of Sydney M. Ralwington’s, former daughter, friend, waitress, soon to be worm food. “God, what the fuck is wrong with you?” There is no answer to that question, no resolution, no nothing. I never wanted to be crazy. Never wanted to fully act on my twisted impulses, the ones I’ve been fighting for the last six years. They were just supposed to be thoughts, but now… is it possible I’ve brought the madness out and made it reality? Did I kill Sydney? Or did something else happen? Was I set up by someone maybe? But who? Who knows me enough that they’d know putting a button in my pocket would mean something? There’s only one person who knows about it and she lives inside me.

Walking over to the box of buttons opened up on my bed, I look at Sydney’s, now part of the collection and the red, oval one that I have no idea who it belongs to. Picking up the heart, I clutch it in my hand, feeling the slightest bit of a prickle in my mind. Pick up the button, Maddie. What do you see?

“I see a crazy obsession,” I mumble, running my thumb across the front of the button. “All because of you.”

Don’t pretend that this is all me. You think it too sometimes. And you see where the obsession started. You were just a kid.

“So what. That still doesn’t mean anything.” I look around at the pictures of when I was a child, feeling like they can see and hear what’s going on, feeling as if they’re judging me. Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I start tearing them down, not caring that I rip some of them in half. I pull them all down, because I don’t want to see the past anymore—don’t want to feel like I’m being haunted by a past that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. By the time I’m finished, I’m panting, there are photos all over the floor, and I feel strangely satisfied.

I pad over to the mirror and smooth my hands across my short, black hair that’s nearly drenched in sweat. There’s something in my eyes that I don’t like but that I do like at the same time. Untamed wildness, a specter of Lily. “I really do hate you,” I say quietly.

“No, you don’t. You’d be lost without me.” The reflection speaks back and I jolt back, slamming my elbow into the wall. “That’s why we’re talking, isn’t it? Because you need me? You created me because you needed me?”

I shake my head as I stare in horror at the mirror. This has never happened before, her appearing to me like this. She looks just like me only she has a streak of blond in her black hair and her eyes are a shade darker than mine. “No, I hate talking to you. It’s because of you that I’m going crazy.” I touch where the streak would be in my own hair.

The reflection laughs at me. Actually throws her head back and laughs like this is all just a big joke. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re only going crazy because you’re fighting the crazy inside you. If you’d just accept it—me—this would be a hell of a lot easier. I could take care of you, you know. Take care of all your problems.” She sounds so much like Ryland for a moment that it throws me off. “Life would be so much easier if you’d just let me take over.”