Dream and reality

My return flight landed, and there was Ethan Pierce, leaving his sick wife, Maya, at home to greet me. At the airport, his gaze was intense, his eyes full of what looked like deep affection. His son, Noah, with a cherubic face, looked up at me adoringly. "You're so pretty, Miss! Will you be my mommy?"

Behind them, Maya, pale and fragile, swayed on her feet, her expression bewildered. I gave a tight-lipped smile and bent down. "Well, kiddo, I actually like your mom. How about I be your daddy instead?"

01

I’d had the nightmare again. At my therapist’s office, her assistant, Sarah, offered me water, her eyes full of concern. "The same dream?" she asked softly.

"I can't take it anymore," I said, my voice flat, trying to control the simmering rage within.

Sarah sighed sympathetically. "Having that dream every night, no wonder you're on edge even after your meds."

I gripped the teacup, my gaze unfocused, muttering, "One day, I’m going to kill them all."

Sarah’s eyes widened in alarm. "Whoa, easy there…"

The clock on the wall ticked, each second echoing in the silence. When the chime finally signaled the next hour, I seemed to snap back to reality. "Sorry," I mumbled to a still-shaken Sarah.

I have a severe, untreatable form of aggressive psychosis. But I rarely had homicidal thoughts, even during episodes, until I started having this recurring nightmare.

The dream always played out the same. A man, in love with someone else, marries a woman he doesn’t love and has a son. The woman is gentle and frail, her social standing far below his. Both the man and his son treat her with indifference. Then, the man’s “one true love” returns, rekindling their old flame. The son, influenced by his father, grows closer to her, too. The heartbroken wife, already ill, gives up on life and commits suicide.

Only then do the man and his son realize they loved her all along. Consumed by grief, the sociopathic jerk projects his pain onto the “one true love.” The dream ends with her ruined and tortured, meeting a gruesome end.

The “one true love” in the dream has my face. Her backstory is similar to mine, too – a wealthy heiress who lived abroad. Except I left the States for treatment.

I was diagnosed with this bizarre psychosis in high school. Doctors weren't quite sure what to make of it. They labeled it a cocktail of mania, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Basically, sometimes I get the urge to murder anyone who annoys me. Sometimes I want company in my madness and try to drive everyone else insane. And sometimes, I just want to watch the world burn. My parents, terrified I'd cause trouble back home, sent me across the Atlantic to a place where no one knew me. My symptoms had been improving, until the nightmares started.

I’m certain the woman in the dream is me, but I can’t fathom why I’d be involved with a married man. I wouldn't touch a married man with a ten-foot pole. I have zero interest in other people’s property, especially men. I despise almost al...