Sullivan and the Lies He Heard

Doe grinned. "I do love her, Sullivan. We've been friends since last year. I love her like I love Beck and Liam and Rocky. As for the secrecy, I didn't want you to know until you got the signed novel. The elbow injury in the bed happened while I was taking measurements for her armoire. I needed to move the bed, she insisted on helping, and her elbow took a hit. I was worried about a possible fracture, what with her being in her late sixties."

"Oh." Sullivan put his hand to his forehead. "Well, shit. There you go. This is the worst-timed misunderstanding in history."

Doe began to laugh. "You know, replaying my side of that phone call from your perspective, I get why you thought I was cheating on you. Schizophrenia or not, that call would have needed some explaining." Laughing, her head dropped onto his shoulder again.

Sullivan began to smile himself. What a shitshow.

Doe wiped her eyes as she raised her head. "As for the part about her corrupting me, it's true too. That woman is a deviant, Sullivan. You'll know that once you meet her. Every time I go to the mansion, she tells me stories of the nasty shit she got up to when she was young. Orgies, public nudity, the works. Name it and she did it. Now she's found a taste for much younger men. I'm talking early-twenties."

"So that means the guy I saw you with..."

"Yeah. He was her lover, not mine. Like I'd ever be with him. He was a nice person and all, but not my type." Her lip curled. "I'd eat that preppy little boy for breakfast."

Sullivan smiled again now. He really did know his wife. Even in the depths of active psychosis, he'd thought that Soft Boy was an unusual choice for her.

"When I went there the day you must have followed me, I found her already entertaining her latest toy. That guy you saw. I waited in the living room, they got decent and joined me, and we had lunch. Boy-Toy was already going anyway, so he and I left together. Yeah, we were laughing about something. Yeah, he kissed my cheek. All innocent. Then I came home and showered--because I was sweaty from the afternoon walk."

He put his head in his hands. "Fuck. Now I'm really glad I didn't walk over there and beat the soul out of him. I was tempted. If I'd done that to some innocent guy...fuck."

"You didn't do it. You handled yourself well, considering everything." She touched his back. "There's never been anyone else, treasure. Not since finding you."

He put his arms around her again. "I know that for sure now. Same with me. Soon as I got a taste of you, everything else was always going to come up short."

Doe smiled. "You know the moment I was certain you were my guy? When I told you in graphic detail about stabbing someone and feeling their blood pouring over my hands, and you called me a harmless doe. I realized you were just as much of a fucked-up asshole as me, and I fell hopelessly in love."

Sullivan spat out laughter. Now, he was the one needing to rest his head on her shoulder. "Well, the guy did walk up and grope you. He deserved getting stabbed." Sobering, he added: "I still feel like an ass for following you. A very lucky ass. Would have been bad for all of us if I'd assaulted a guy for what turned out to be no reason."

"Well, you didn't assault him. You controlled yourself even though the world was upside-down around you. I'm proud of you. And in August you're getting a signed first-batch copy of Frederica's new book."

Sullivan raised a brow. "Frederica?"

"Yup." Doe grimaced. "Now you see why she uses her initials for publishing political thrillers."

This had him laughing all over again. Truthfully, he might never have picked up his first F.J. Talbot book if the cover had said 'Frederica' instead.

He didn't stop holding his wife as he laughed. So close. Never close enough. "Sorry I suspected you. Hell, I even planted a mic in the woodshop."

"Sullivan!"

"Sorry. I took it down the next morning."

She sighed. "Okay. You're forgiven. You do deserve a lot of leeway there." Her arms slipped around him. "You know there's an easy way for you to figure out that you didn't hallucinate the phone call or following me?"

"How?"

"Because your visual and audio hallucinations were always separate. Like with the 'fire' you tried to save me from. You didn't hear, feel or smell it. You only saw it. You didn't have multi-sensory hallucinations, so it means that anything you experienced with all your senses, must be reality."

Sullivan thought back to those months of his being in active psychosis. He couldn't remember ever having had a multi-sensory hallucination. They had either been visual or auditory; never both at the same time. Doe was correct.

"That didn't occur to me," he admitted. "It's a good way of figuring out what was real or not. A lot of things back then were difficult for me, because of that."

"I know. So, is this one of the things that'll make you feel stronger?"

"For sure." He kissed her hair. "Thanks."

In that moment, he wanted for nothing. The moon and stars were bright above him. His head was clear. His love was in his arms. He had a honeymoon happening soon and a wedding happening sooner. One day, this house would be the place where rejected kids found solace.

Yeah, he wasn't like most people. He was on antipsychotic meds, he'd be under psychiatric supervision for life, there was a commentator he'd rather not hear, and he had to be watchful for any signs that he might be relapsing.

Despite that, he was now sure he wasn't destined to be an unhappy man. He'd carried sorrows with him through all his early years, but he didn't need to keep carrying them. He could drop the load and walk away from it until it vanished.

"Here," thought Sullivan Rafferty as peace filled his heart, "I finally part ways with sorrow."

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THE END

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