Unravel

UNVEIL

1 year later

Life moves forward whether you’re okay or not.

The ground is frozen, with a blanket of sound covering it. It’s a freezing winter night, where the stars are out, twinkling brightly. I watch all of this with a smile on my face, grateful that for once, I’m on the okay side. Once, there used to be a barrier between me and the outside world. That barrier was once the truth and it held me back from so much.

For decades, my life had been put on pause. I stopped breathing, living. To put it simply, I stopped existing. But for the past year, I have been trying to exist; all the while knowing everything that has happened to me and not letting that define me.

“You ready?”

I look over at Lachlan Maximilian Halstead. “I’m ready.”

“We need to hurry up,” he says, his breath appearing in the air like puffs of smoke. “My fingers are going to freeze.”

He kneels down and drags a match across the coarse matchbox surface. The flame comes alive. He looks over at me and smiles before he places the flame against the tip of the rocket.

There are times I catch him watching me and before he can recover, I see the concern and sadness in his eyes. My past still weighs on him… on us. But it’s getting better. Every day the wounds are less painful and noticeable.

The fuse glows ember and we instantly back away. I curl my hand around Lachlan’s arm and lean into him and think about everything I’ve been through in the past year.

I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. It’s also called multiple personality disorder and better known as split personality. In most cases there is more than one personality.

But Lana was my only personality.

My only alter.

My only part.

And creating Max? Well, that was a whole other twist that baffled Dr. Rutledge and the rest of the doctors. I know I can’t go back and change what I thought and who I created. I just know that I did it to survive.

I direct my attention at the array of colors in the sky. For the next twenty minutes we light off rocket after rocket. Soon, I forget about the bitter wind hitting my cheeks. I just live in the moment and enjoy the show.

Everything that we’ve been through makes me realize that love is about finding the right person in this cold, oppressive world that loves all the wrong things about you. Everything you try to hide, they accept. And I know he accepts me.

He puts the matches in his back pocket and looks over at me. “Did you like the show?”

“It was beautiful.”

Lachlan stands up and holds out his hand. “You ready to go home?”

I nod and take his hand.