When I woke up from my last fugue after our college graduation, Garret told me I’d been out cold for three days. I’ve never been unconscious after a transition for that long and it worried me. Sometimes if the switch lasted more than a couple of hours I’d be weak and sleep it off, but nothing like this. My whole body felt like a dead weight sunk into the mattress. My eyes took several minutes to adjust to my surroundings. Instead of having no memory of what took place during my blackout, the entire day was gone.

I tried to get Garret to tell me what happened but each time I brought it up he told me not to worry about it. He promised me Canaan didn’t hurt anyone; just made a few threats but I knew there was more to it than that. But when Garret couldn't look me in the eye, I knew he was lying. We never kept secrets from each other and if Garret couldn't tell me what was going on, it had no choice but to believe him. It's not like he withheld information from me before.

Garret and I carried the last of our boxes into our new apartment on the fourth floor. It was a simple, private place already furnished. The kitchen was stocked with plates, silverware, and cookware. The living room held a couch, a dining table with four chairs, and a small television that sat on a wooden coffee table. Beside the dining area, there were sliding glass doors which led to a balcony that overlooked the building complex’s playground. Our apartment had two rooms but all the bedroom furniture was placed in the one at the end of the hall. The other room was more like a small office space, big enough for a cot and our art supplies. 

As I took in the surroundings of our new home, I couldn’t help but feel a familiarity about this place, like I’ve been here before. The white, disinfected halls outside our apartment reminded me of the ones at the Kreiger Institute, but that’s where the similarities ended. I’ve never been in this apartment before and if one of my alters has, surely Garret would know about it.

Since Garret wouldn’t fill in the blanks, I spent the whole drive here trying to piece together the events that led to the transition. The last thing I remembered was seeing my mother in the university’s auditorium. Even from across the auditorium, I could see the dark circles under her eyes, her high cheekbones more distinctive and her hair a tangled mess. The instant our eyes met from across the room, she lowered her gaze thinking I wouldn’t recognize her. Sure, her hair was longer and stringy and it looked like she lost a lot of weight. It was at that moment I felt my heart race and could hear in the back of my mind Canaan’s voice. We concluded my mother was a trigger for Canaan. The first thing I saw when I finally came to was Garret packing our things.

When I asked where we were moving to, his only response was a kiss on the head and a question: “Do you trust me?” He was the only one in the world I trusted, of course.

We spent our day unpacking boxes and bags for our new place. All during the move, I kept my thoughts to myself still trying to figure out what Garret was hiding. Each trip we made into the building, he led us through an unmarked side entrance. It wasn’t like him to keep secrets from me and it began to make me worry. Feeling defeated and rather frustrated with him, we worked in silence which made things move even faster. While Garret set up our new kitchen and bedroom, I got to work on the spare room. The room was smaller than the master bedroom and devoid of furniture except for a cot and mattress against the far corner. Garret gave me free reign over the room, saying a private studio room would be a great place for when I’d need to clear my head.

Art always seemed the best way to focus on myself and let go of my cluttered thoughts. The canvas was my journal, expressing my true feelings and thoughts. I laid a heavy-duty drop cloth over the carpet and set our trifold easel in the center of the room. Its aluminum legs locked in place awaiting a fresh, blank canvas. I put our supply carts against the wall organized by their medium and then opened our canvas binders to find some inspirational pieces for the wall. After flipping through the portfolio assignments, I found two that would be perfect. One was the surreal portrait I made of Garret which made a smile tug at the corners of my lips. The outlining details were like a violet sky before dusk and his hair reminded me of an aurora borealis. His eyes shone like two bright stars radiating forth and beckoning me to him. The other one I found was a painting of a Maryland beach. Two silhouetted figures sat in the sand, watching the waves crash into the lighthouse. The idea of just myself with Garret by my side and living by the ocean would be a dream come true.

As I flipped through our paintings, I almost forgot that was mad Still not in the mood to face Garret, I set the paintings aside until I was ready to retrieve the tools. I supposed he had a reason for the sudden move and keeping quiet about my last transition, but he knows I couldn’t stand secrets between us. I’ve told him all I could about my past, or at least all I could remember. The blackouts left so many holes in my memory that it made a walk down memory lane virtually impossible. I relied on Garret to fill in the blanks but he wouldn't help, who could I trust?

All that was left to put away were my four crates packed with the things the alters and I collected over the years. The first was a crate full of my journals cataloging every transition since I left Krieger Institute. I shuddered at the thought of ever going back to that place. All the drugs and tests they did on me left some serious scars.

 The other four bins looked foreign to me but the labeled names familiar: Mikah, Bază, Ana, and Canaan. It was hard for me to acknowledge that they had their own things, like they had their own lives. I sank to the floor still staring at the boxes for what felt like hours, my mind filling with emotions. Each alter had their own personalities, their own quirks, their own needs and desires. It should've been obvious that they would want lives for themselves. I took a deep breath and reached for Mikah’s box on the top. He had scrawled his name in chicken scratch over the lid. I ran my index finger over the sloppy marker and a sense of awareness came over me. With trembling hands, I swallowed the lump in my throat and opened the box. On top of all his toys and clothes was a brand new stuffed rabbit. It had round beady eyes, long floppy ears, long heavily stuffed limbs, and a red velvet bow around its neck. As I stroked its soft grey fur, it dawned on me the rabbit must have come from Garret. Why would he buy presents for the alters?

A chill rushed down my spine and that childlike voice awoke, full of glee. Mikah saw the stuffed animal and rushed to the front seat like a child on Christmas morning impatient for his presents.

Is that for me? That’s mine, isn’t it?

Mikah? Why is Garret buying you presents?

Don’t you know? I’m his favorite and he's my favorite, too!

It couldn’t be. The idea that Garret would much rather spend time with Mikah than me was too absurd to be true. Yet, it felt like all the oxygen got punched from my lungs. I so insecure that I'd let the excitement of a child win the fight over my body. Why was my world growing cold and black over a simple gift?