“How do you feel about your father?”

I didn’t respond and after some silence, he asked another question.

“How do you feel About your mother?”

Silence once again befell the room. I wondered if this was alright to not answer any of his questions. He didn't appear to be upset with my lack of cooperation but I felt like it would be dishonest to myself to hide. My silence was not an act of rebellion but due to my confidence in how I felt being knocked down. Somehow when I was asked that question not from myself but by an outside force, one that to me held the unmistakable presence of someone real, I began to doubt how I felt. It began to feel like all my actions, thoughts and surroundings were just something to keep me sane. I began to feel like I wasn't aware of myself and I began to grow scared. I spoke to drownd out my doubts and to prove that I was me and I knew how I feel. 

“I love my parents of course”

“What about them do you love?”

I was about to answer but then stopped. I couldn't think of a single thing about them I loved. My mother worked hard to provide for us after the death of my father and I greatly admire that but I would not call that love. My father treated me kindly and gave me lots of attention when he could but I feel more fondness for him than love. 

“I don’t know” I answer confused.

He looked at me, wrote something down on his clipboard, and then spoke.

“I'll ask you once again, How do you feel about your parents?”

The tone of his voice was comforting and I felt that he was to be trusted. 

“I love them,” I let out for a second time.

He didn't say anything he just stared at me as if he could look past my eyes into my brain and find the answer for himself. Does he think I'm lying thought? Am I lying?  I began the search through my memories for anything that would prove or disprove my love or hate for them. I began to recall memories that up until now I had forgotten.  My mother made meals after school, my father scolded me, spent days with my mother, and the first time my father hit me. 

It was a day like any other at this time. Id gets home from school eats what my mother had made me. After I finished my food I had a particular craving for ice cream and I begged my mother for some. She caved and I happily ate my ice cream. It was hot that day and because of that when my dad came home he took off his suit and set it down on the couch. He was only on his lunch break and wouldn’t be staying for long but that was okay with me and was a fairly regular occurrence. I set my ice cream down and greeted and hugged my father and he was as loving as it always was. I went back to my ice cream but unknown to me it had already melted due to the intense heat of that day. When I sat down I did so in the same overly dramatic way any child would and jumped on the couch. The now liquid ice cream flew out of my bowl and went everywhere mostly on Dad's suit. Being a kid and trying to prevent punishment, I attempted to fix it. I whipped it up as fast as I could and thought that was the end of it. The ice cream was not entirely gone, however: in the heat, whatever small bit had remained dried up and began to give off an unpleasant smell. When he came home he was upset and began to take out his anger on his mom. He said she didn't wash it properly and she claimed she did. I knew the reason and didn't want my parents fighting because of me so I confessed. I told him I had spilled ice cream and had tried to act like it didn't happen. He was pissed, this was the most upset I had ever seen him, the sudden contrast to his usual demeanor scared me. He gave an important meeting that day and the smell of his suit permeated through the room and he was asked to postpone his presentation and was ultimately embarrassed. He raised his hand and hit me with so much force I was knocked down. “If only you told me I could have worn a different suit, now I'm the laughing stock of the whole company,” he yelled at me with a look that was half anger and half shame.  He only hit me once but that was enough to instill a fear in me that never went away. I internalized it as my fault and that my father did nothing wrong. Afterward, he gave me gifts and did all he could to mend the wound in our relationship he caused. I pretend as nothing happened and we were closer than were ever was but deep down I was terrified of him. My mother never intervened or tried to stop him and I resented her for it. 

“I hate my parents,” I responded.

The words spewed forth from my mouth and caught me by surprise. I had come to finally put my feelings into words, true words, instead of lying to myself so I wouldn't cause any more trouble. 

“Do you know what your mother thinks of you?” He asked.

“No”

“Would you like to?”

I thought about it and grew curious if he knew something I didn't.

“Yes”

“I talked with and asked your mother about you. She said she often finds you staring off and would wonder what you were thinking about. She said sometimes you wouldn’t come home and she’d find you somewhere just staring off into nothing, the same kind of look she saw you have many times before. She said you’d talk about things that never happened and then forget others. She worries about you greatly but doesn’t know how to help you and until recently wasn’t sure if there was anything wrong with you.”

“...”

“I have one final question for you and then ill give you my evaluation. Did you kill your father?”

“Yes”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“No”

“What are you lying about?”

“My father is not dead and I have always known that but convinced myself I had killed him. To me, it must have been better to think of him as dead than being alive but never able to see him again.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, I will now give my evaluation. After your father assaulted you and you sent him to the hospital and then after he recover and your parents got their divorce you began trying to escape reality. Your body tried to protect itself from the trauma and you escaped to a more desirable reality. You forgot some things and replaced them with others.”

He was right, what I once imagined while pushing the knowledge of its fakeness deep into the recesses of my mind was coming back to me. I now knew what was real and what wasn't.  what I made up seems childish in how unrealistic it is, among them include my house burning down, killing a classmate, beating up a harasser, getting kidnapped, and the biggest thing I did, the fabrication of Yua and Okuda. They weren't entirely fake, being based on real people I had seen in passing, but our relationship was. It was like I was trying to escape into a fantasy world where I was the main character of an intense and dramatic story. 

“So, am I insane or something?” I asked him. 

“No, you'll be kept here for a few days for further analysis but with some therapy, you should be fine to go home.”

After a few days, I was allowed to go back home with the addition of regular therapy sessions.  I apologized and tried my best to atone for what id had done. Days turned into weeks, then to months until it was the time for my final year of high school. I was determined to make something of myself and to live my life instead of hiding. I sat down in my first class of the year, excited for the bright new world before me. I looked around me soaking in my surroundings and when I looked beside me my eyes fixated on the person sitting beside me. It was Okuda, the real one. I introduce myself to him and asked him a question. 

“Do you want to hang out sometime?”

[THE END]