"Melanie," Allen said, pacing as she sat on the chair, looking at the photos hanging from the clothesline strung across the apartment, barely lit up, "you need to know that these are things you've buried, things you haven't faced, things you need to open yourself up to and overcome. Until then, there can be no real progress."
"I've made progress!" Mel said, on the verge of tears, "I...I've been on medication, and I've been going to group therapy, and...and..." "You and I both know that isn't enough. It wasn't enough for your fathers sister, and it won't be enough for you," Allen said, crouching in front of her so their eyes were level; he exhaled, scratched his forehead and smiled, adding, "Melanie...please trust me. We all just want to help you. Listen to us." Melanie wiped her nose on the sleeve of her turtleneck and nodded, trying not to cry more. She knew she was sick. She just hadn't expected to be as sick as she was. *** It was morning. Bea had gone for a jog as she did every morning, while Gus went to spend the day with his daughter. This left Melanie all alone in the apartment, something she was somewhat uneasy with, even in Gus's apartment. The concept of being alone had been shattered for her ever since Lisa had attacked. Now she felt she was being watched, even in the softest silence, she felt she was always being watched. Standing at the window, looking out as she sipped her cup of tea, her tiara on her head, she couldn't help but think about Lisa. She tried not to, but the betrayal hurt far too much to overlook. After a bit she heard the toaster oven ding, and raced to get her croissant from it, cutting it open to butter it, before sitting back down to eat breakfast. As she ate, Melanie pulled the tiara off her head and turned it over in her hand, looking at it. This was the last part of her princess identity she still clung to, even when on medication, mostly because it was an accessory, and something her father had given to her. She couldn't bring herself to give it up and pack it away with everything else. Chewing, she heard someone in the hall, and looked up towards the door to see a manila envelope slide under Gus's door. Melanie hesitated at first, but finally got up and walked, cautiously, towards it, bending down to pick it up. It merely read, "Please Come" on the front, and underneath that was the signature, "Allen". She had been wanting to get to know him better, he seemed like he could be a good substitute father figure, and she needed that. As her fingers played with the clasp on the back of the envelope, she could hear the sound of a door shutting, and figured it must be Allen re-entering his apartment. She gave up on the envelope, tucked it under her arm and headed out into the hallway, walking down to his apartment. "Allen?" she asked, mouth still full of croissant as she knocked, "Allen? It's Mel. Are you there? I got your envelope." No answer. Melanie put her hand on the doorknob and turned, and was surprised when the door easily swung open. Melanie stepped inside, and was surprised to see the apartment was nothing but black. No discernible furniture, no wallpaper, nothing, except for a single lamp swinging over a chair, and clothesline hung all around, with developing photos hanging from them. "Allen?..." she asked again, stepping inside. The door swung shut behind her, and she turned to it, being caught by surprise. As she turned back, she saw Allen standing over a pan, holding a pair of tongs as he developed more photos. "Allen?" she asked. "Hey, I was hoping you'd come over," he said, "Please, have a seat." "I got your envelope," she said, "...what are you doing?" "I am unearthing memories," Allen said, clipping yet another photo to the clothesline, "please, take a seat," he said again, motioning to the single chair in the room. Melanie did as was suggested, and sat in the chair, until she realized she recognized the people in the photos...herself, her family, her father...these were all photos taken during her adolescence. "...Allen, what...what is this?" she asked. "It's everything you need it to be," he said, turning around and pulling his latex gloves off, setting the tongs down in the pan, "it's what you need right now. You're not doing well, Melanie. You know you're not doing well. You trusted the wrong people, you stopped taking medication - though we are proud of you for starting again - and you're unsure of yourself. I'm here to help you realize what it is you actually need." "...who...who are you?" she asked, and Allen laughed. "Melanie," he said, "Melanie, I'm you. Well, sort of. I'm a...a projection. You needed an older man around to help you sift through things, and that's what I'm here for. Think of me as your consciousness. The part of your brain that's well enough to know it's ill, and wants to get better." "I am crazy," Melanie whispered, and Allen sighed. "You're not crazy, Melanie, you're sick, there's a difference. But if you keep working with yourself, you'll overcome it, and you'll get better. It's not a straight line, and it takes a lot of effort, but it needs to be done. Don't you want to be well?" "I don't want to do this," Melanie whispered, sounding like a mixture of angry and scared. "Melanie," Allen said, pacing as she sat on the chair, looking at the photos hanging from the clothesline strung across the apartment, barely lit up, "you need to know that these are things you've buried, things you haven't faced, things you need to open yourself up to and overcome. Until then, there can be no real progress." "I've made progress!" Mel said, on the verge of tears, "I...I've been on medication, and I've been going to group therapy, and...and..." "You and I both know that isn't enough. It wasn't enough for your fathers sister, and it won't be enough for you," Allen said, crouching in front of her so their eyes were level; he exhaled, scratched his forehead and smiled, adding, "Melanie...please trust me. We all just want to help you. Listen to us." Melanie wiped her nose on the sleeve of her turtleneck and nodded, trying not to cry more. Allen plucked one of the photos off the clothesline, and handed it to her. She took it and glanced at the photo, which showed her and her father in his hospital room, as she read to him from her favorite storybook. She felt the tears well up in her eyes, and wanted to sob. "You were a child," Allen said, "You tried to hide all of this, and that's completely understandable. Your brain did what it had to do at the time in order to ensure survival. But now it's time to heal. It's time to grow. Your brain has stagnated long enough. Do you remember that day?" "Mhm," she said, nodding, "I read my favorite story to him, and he was so happy to see I had learned to read. Truth was, I didn't even need to read it. I knew it by heart because of all the times I'd had him read it to me at bedtime. He read it to me when I was sick, so I thought maybe...maybe if I read it to him, he might get better." "Children are often naive like that," Allen said, "and that's perfectly understandable. But he didn't get better, did he?" "No," Melanie whispered, shaking her head as the tears rolled down her face, "he didn't. This was near the end. He died a few days later." "You were only 7. Children usually don't know how to deal with that kind of loss, especially when they're as close to their parents as you were with your father. But look at his face, look how happy you made him, even at the end when he was in tremendous pain and facing down the barrel of his mortality. You still made him happier than ever, that's how proud he was of you, that's how much he loved you." Melanie cracked a little smile, wiping her tears on her sleeve again as she handed the photo back to Allen. Allen took it and clipped it back up, walking down to the end of the clothesline. "Melanie," he said, "therapy, medication, they're good starters, but you can't just do them and expect to get better. It takes more work than that. They don't just instantly cure you, and a lot of times, people have setbacks, relapses, and that's perfectly okay. Your just lucky your hallucinations are nice and helpful. How about this one." Allen unclipped another photo and walked back, handing it to Melanie who stared at it for a few moments, before feeling her chest tighten and her eyes water up again. She looked up at Allen in surprise, shaking her head. "I don't want to talk about this one," she said. "You need to, because you've already been dealing with it lately," Allen said, "It's perfectly okay, Melanie. Go ahead and tell me about her." "She was...she was the only person who was nice to me in middle school," Melanie said, "She used to stick up for me when the other girls made fun of me. Until Lisa...I just always assumed I'd appreciated the support, but Lisa made me realize that it...it was probably something more. Something deeper. I always thought she was pretty, and when I used to make my storybooks about my kingdom at home, I'd always make her the Royal Guard, always there to protect me." Allen knelt in front of her and placed his hand on her knee, smiling at her. "It's okay," Allen said, "You've been fighting it for so long, you wanted to escape so badly from who you are that you devolved into this princess persona, simply because princesses always find prince charming, and you thought that's what your father would've wanted. But...your father would've loved anyone who loved you the way he did, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he just want you to be happy?" "I...guess," Mel said, looking at the photo again, showing her and the girl from school sitting on the bleachers during lunch and laughing, eating; she grimaced and mumbled, "...I don't want to be this way." "There's nothing wrong with it, Melanie." "I know, but...but I'm already sick, and people will just use that against me. They'll say 'oh, you just think you're...this way...because you're mentally ill', people always utilize a persons...interests...as weapons against them. I can't have that." "The only person doing that to you right now is you," Allen said, "Please, stop running from it." "...i can't," she whispered, crying again, "i...i can't. i already have so much else wrong with me, and Lisa...Lisa showed what happens when you...when you're..." "Lisa was an outlier, Melanie, she isn't the end all be all example," Allen said, "Melanie, I want you to look at me and say it. You'll feel free once you do. Please, I promise nobody is going to judge you for it. I want you to be happy, I want us to be happy. But we can never be happy if we keep trying to escape from who we are." Melanie took a few deep breaths and looked back at the photo. She could remember the girls laugh, even to this day, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself for being different. Then she thought about Emma, and Gus, and everyone else. They weren't ashamed of who they were, and they'd all worked hard to get better or fix things around them. The only holdout was Melanie. She wanted to be like them too. She wanted to be well, and happy, and in love. But Lisa... "...she...she hurt me so much," Mel said, "what if I can never open up again because of what she did?" "You will," Allen said, "Trust me, you will heal from it. It was traumatic, certainly, and it will create trust issues, but you will heal. But you need to take the first step. You know you made your father happy, you know you make Gus happy with your friendship, so why don't you start trying to make yourself happy? Say it, Melanie. Please. It's eating away at us." Melanie sighed and shut her eyes, handing him back the photo. He sighed and took it, walking back to clip it back up when he heard her speak. "I hated myself back then for feeling that way," Mel said, "but maybe...I could learn to love being...gay." Allen smiled and turned back to face her. "I'm proud of you, proud of us," Allen said, "Don't you feel better now?" "Not particularly, no," Melanie whispered. "Well, you will, give it time," Allen said, walking back towards her, another photo in his hand, "Let's do one more. How about we finally revisit the one you don't want to visit the most. The day you left." "God please, no, I...I can't-" "You can, and you will," Allen said, dropping the photo in her lap. This photo took her back to the day she finally left the house, the day she and Shane had their most explosive argument, the day he told her to her face he was sick of having to clean up after her, sick of how crazy she was. Things he'd since taken back, but that had stung nonetheless for many years, despite his numerous apologies. "He was going through shit," Melanie said, "I know that now. I may have even known then. But I needed him to be my brother, and he was tired of being my brother. He wasn't even a brother, he was a keeper. A janitor for all my messes, of which there were far too many. He told me nobody wanted me there. He told me mom had wasted her potential on me, and that dad..." She tried to hold back from crying, but the tears came anyway. "...and that dad would hate what I've become, even though I knew full well daddy would never hate me," she said, "...he was just angry, and he lashed out at me. So I cut contact, and I left, and I took the money my parents had entrusted to me to get my own apartment and made my own life for myself. I lived on that money for so long, never even thinking about getting a real job or having a real life, and instead I was able to retreat further into my delusions because I didn't have anyone telling me they were, in fact, just that. By the time Gus met me, I was so far gone, living so deep within the fantasy I'd crafted for myself, that I didn't even really know who I was anymore." "Shane loves you," Allen said. "I know he loves us," Mel said, "and I've forgiven him, and he's made up for it. But here I am again, making things hard for him. Dating his ex, all because she was trying to get back at him. I've always just been a problem for Shane, and he...he has a life of his own. It isn't fair to expect him to save mine. He was so mean that day though...shoving me against the wall and screaming at me how crazy I was...that he was embarrassed of me, and that he wanted a normal sister." "People have been nasty to us, Melanie," Allen said, "but all that should really do is not enable us to believe they were right, but work harder to prove they were wrong. Don't you want to prove them wrong?" Mel smiled and nodded, finally stopping crying. Allen smiled back at her, and looked at the envelope under her arm. "You never opened that?" he asked, and she shook her head. "You should." Allen went back to developing photos, as Melanie finally unclasped the back of the envelope and slid out a thin collection of papers. She flipped through them, her brow furrowing, until she looked up at Allen, confused. "Allen...what is this?" she asked. "That, Melanie...is what you were diagnosed with when you were a little girl," Allen said, "You found those papers when you were a little girl, but you never really understood what they meant. Now you're old enough to grasp it." "...'It is our professional opinion that Melanie Irres, age 11, suffers from Schizoaffective and Dissociative Identity Disorder. We will recommend medications and therapists to help combat this combination. She states she often feels detached from her own life, as though she's merely watching it play out, or is in an entirely separate life altogether, believing she is a princess from a long lost kingdom. Please see the attached...'. Allen...I..." "Melanie," Allen said, undoing his apron and setting his tongs back down, pulling his gloves back off, "perhaps by medical definition, yes, you're crazy. But that word is so outdated, and so misleading. And it's not like you can't live a perfectly healthy life with those disorders. They're just disorders. Just another facet of your personality that make up the entirety of who you are. And who you are...who we are....is Melanie Irres, a deeply closeted, severely ill young lady, who has found a support group, who has a family, and who's finally ready to get better. So never let your diagnosis define your entirety, because it's just a small microcosm of your person. You're not 'crazy'. You're Melanie. And that's a beautiful thing." Melanie stood up and threw her arms around Allen, sobbing as he laughed and stroked her hair gently. "There there," he whispered, "it's okay, you're okay. You don't have to do this alone." Melanie wasn't sure how long she stood there, hugging Allen, but after a while, the door opened, and the landlady of the building was standing there, looking at her. Melanie turned and looked at her. "Mrs. Irres? What are you doing in here?" she asked. The light now filling the room, Melanie could see it was empty. There was no clothesline covered in photos, there was no chair, and there was no Allen. Melanie smiled and looked at the landlady, shrugging. "Just admiring the space," she said. *** Lying on Gus's couch that night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about her day, she couldn't help but feel good. She felt like she could finally shut the door on the first part of her life, and really move forward and progress. But something irked her...why had her parents hidden this information from her? She chewed on her lip and realized she had to confront her mother, or her aunt, and get this information out in the open. She needed to know why she was never told what she suffered from. And she wanted to. She was just scared what the truth would do to her. Build forward...or break down.
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Royally Screwed follows 24 year old Melanie Irres, an average young woman...who legitimately believes she's a princess. Archives
July 2023
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