Two hundred and seventy-five days. I've counted each one meticulously, marking them in my mind like notches on a prison wall. Today is no different as I lie strapped to the cold metal chair, the electrodes positioned at my temples with clinical precision.
The nurse—Marion, fifty-two, divorced, two children in college—tightens the leather restraints around my wrists. Her fingers work with practiced efficiency, but I notice the slight hesitation, the momentary softening in her eyes. Pity. It's useless to me, but I catalog it anyway. Everyone has weaknesses. Even the staff of Lakewood Psychiatric Facility.
"Ready, Mrs. Mitchell?" Dr. Williams asks, his voice carrying that particular blend of false concern and professional detachment I've come to recognize.
I don't answer. I never do. Instead, I stare at the ceiling, counting the tiles (thirty-six, always thirty-six) as the rubber bit is placed between my teeth.
The machine hums to life. I focus on the sound, measuring its pitch, its rhythm. Three seconds of charging. Then pain—white-hot and searing—floods through my skull. My body arches against the restraints, but my mind remains detached, clinical. Twelve seconds of current. 450 volts. Lower than last week. They're adjusting the dosage, which means they're noticing patterns in my responses.
As the electricity courses through me, I don't think about the pain. I think about Vanessa. My twin. My betrayer. I picture her wearing my clothes, sleeping in my bed, touching my husband. The rage is a separate current, running parallel to the electricity, keeping me lucid when I should be broken.
When it's over, I allow my body to go slack, my eyes to roll back slightly. I've perfected this performance—the slight tremor in my hands, the disoriented gaze, the slackness of my jaw. Dr. Williams makes a note on his clipboard, nodding with satisfaction at what he perceives as progress.
Three hours later, I sit across from him in his office for my cognitive assessment. The room is deliberately calming—soft blue walls, landscape paintings, a small fountain bubbling in the corner. As if aesthetics could mask the brutality of what happens here.
"Victoria, do you know where you are?" he asks, pen poised over his evaluation form.
I blink slowly, allowing my gaze to wander aimlessly around the room before settling somewhere over his left shoulder. "The garden," I murmur. "Mother wants roses for the centerpiece."
He nods, making another note. "And what day is it today?"
"Tuesday," I say, then frown as if confused. "No... Sunday? The party is Sunday."
While I ramble incoherently about a fictional garden party, my mind is elsewhere, replaying the scene that brought me here. The commitment papers spread across my mother's antique mahogany desk. Eleanor Hayes, her face a mask of cold determination as she signed her name with a flourish. And Vanessa, my mirror image, watching with barely concealed triumph as two orderlies dragged me away.
"You need help, Victoria," she had said, her voice dripping with false concern. "James and I just want you to get better."
James. My anchor. My love. The thought of him believing their lies about me twists like a knife.
Dr. Williams continues his assessment, and I continue my performance. A delicate dance we've been engaged in for months. He sees what he expects to see—a broken woman, lost in delusions. He doesn't see me cataloging his habits, the security protocols, the staff rotations. He doesn't see me planning.
It's well past midnight when I hear the soft shuffle of footsteps outside my door. Marvin, the night janitor—sixty-four, widowed, arthritis in his left knee—slips a folded newspaper clipping under my door before continuing down the hall.
I wait until his footsteps fade before retrieving it, my fingers trembling—not from the ECT this time, but from anticipation. The headline reads "Victoria Hayes Shines at Gala" above a photo of a woman in a red gown that once hung in my closet. But it's not me. It's Vanessa, wearing my face, my name, my life like a second skin.
A smaller caption catches my eye: "Husband James Mitchell still in recovery."
Recovery. Not business trip. Not extended vacation. Recovery.
Something cold and sharp crystallizes in my chest. Vanessa hasn't just stolen my identity—she's hurt James. Hidden him away somewhere while she parades around in my life.
I carefully fold the clipping and tuck it into the small tear I've made in my mattress, alongside the other scraps of the outside world I've collected. Evidence. Ammunition.
Two hundred and seventy-five days I've endured. Planned. Waited.
But the waiting ends now.
