The Red Eye

I press my forehead against the cold oval of the airplane window, hoping the glass can numb what’s burning inside me. My business trip is cut short, though that’s not the headline. The real headline came in an email from a friend: Your fiancé cheated on you with your best friend. Three years gone in a single sentence.

I fight back the tears. If I let them out, they’ll come in torrents. I beg the universe for invisibility. No eye contact. No small talk. Just let me sit here in my wrinkled business suit, the uniform of a life I no longer recognize.

Then I hear it, the thud of a body dropping into the seat beside me. A young guy sits, close to my age, jeans worn thin and a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt. He stretches like he owns the row. The scent of patchouli and weed rides in with him.

I force my eyes back to the window. The red-eye Southwest flight to San Francisco, with a stop in Denver, is half-empty, yet he chooses my row. Why? Why can’t I be allowed to sink alone? The cabin lights dim for takeoff, and I pray for his presence to dissolve so I can drown in my private wreckage without a witness.

“Hey,” he says, casual, like we’re two old friends bumping into each other at a bar. “Red-eyes are brutal, huh?”

I nod without turning, eyes fixed on the glittering runway lights. If I open my mouth, it’ll all come out in a rush, three wasted years, a diamond ring, and my best friend’s laughter entwined with his. Not here. Not now. Not with this retro hippie wedged next to me.

He doesn’t take the hint. “Headed home or headed away?”

My hand clamps the armrest. The words that form in my mind are sharp, bitter: Away, damn it. Away from betrayal, away from the knife still twisting in my back.

But what slips out is softer. “Home.”

He studies me, and I feel the subtle shift when someone sees your pain you’ve fought to bury. My chest tightens. I want to scream at him to look away, to stop recognizing me in ways that even my closest friends have missed.

“Rough day?” he asks.

One traitorous tear slides down. I swipe it fast, angry with myself.

“Please,” I whisper, not even knowing what I mean—please stop, please stay quiet, or please save me.

He exhales as if the wall between us has cracked just enough. “I’ve had a rough day too,” he admits. “My girlfriend gave me an ultimatum. Leave the theater, get a real job, or she’s out. I love her, but… the routine life? It’ll kill me.”

I turn then, really look at him. His eyes are searching, weary, as lost as mine. Tears blur my vision, and suddenly I’m spilling everything: the betrayal, the phone call, the wreckage of what I thought my life was going to be. The words tumble out in a shameful cascade, because I can’t hold them anymore.

He takes my hand, his thumb brushing the back of it smoothing away the jagged feelings. He doesn’t offer advice. He just… gets it. I don’t know how, but he does.

My mascara is streaking like war paint, my makeup smeared from the crying I swore I wouldn’t do in public. Then he leans over, voice pitched just loud enough to carry.
“Two rejected souls ending up on the same flight. Kinda poetic, right? Like the universe looked at the seating chart and thought, ‘Hmm, row 14 could use some heartbreak.’ If love is turbulence, at least we can fasten our seatbelts and ride it out together.”

Something in me bursts open. I laugh. Not a controlled giggle. A full-bodied, belly-shaking roar that echoes off the cabin walls. My tears of grief flip into tears of hilarity, pouring down my face until I look like a melted wax figure.

He joins me matching my rhythm. Our duet grows so loud the flight attendants hustle over, trying to hush us with stern faces, until we repeat the line. One claps a hand over her mouth, snorts, and then she’s gone too, wheezing with laughter.

A man across the aisle chuckles. A woman in the row ahead throws her head back and howls. Someone in the back yells, “Tell it again!” and suddenly the whole plane is vibrating with laughter rolling from row to row like a wave.

For the first time today, my chest doesn’t feel caved in. As strangers laugh with us, I realize that heartbreak doesn’t have to be solitary. Sometimes row 14 turns into a comedy club at 30,000 feet.

After a few minutes, the uproar dwindles into a hum of sighs and sniffles. The stranger and I collapse into our seats, drained, a shared blanket hiding our conspiratorial closeness.

I turn to him, ready to whisper a thank you, but the words dissolve. Instead, my lips find his, a full, desperate kiss that tastes of grief and relief. He returns it in spades, full and passionate. When I pull back, his face is streaked with my mascara, a tragicomic canvas, like a sad clown on furlough from the circus.

I flip my compact mirror open for him. He tries to keep a straight face, but a strangled squeak escapes, and the ridiculousness nearly undoes us both. We bury ourselves under the airline blanket, stealing touches.

Then Denver. The moment ends.

We gather our carry-ons in silence. At the gate, our next flights beckon, different gates, different cities, different lives. We check the screens and without words, we both know.

Together we turn, walk out of the terminal into the freezing Denver winter.

We take our tickets from our pockets and tear them into confetti. Pieces flutter in the breeze, a farewell to destinations that no longer matter.

We don’t even know each other’s names. We know everything we need to.

Specters in the Womb

Voices are pulling me apart. They chatter, shriek, moan. Sometimes they’re mine. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they sound like teeth grinding inside my skull.

My boyfriend says I’m crazy. One second I’m kissing him, the next I’m shoving him away because I feel hands, tiny, cold ones gripping my shoulders. In class I try to focus on equations, but my pencil scrawls circles, spirals, and jagged claws. I don’t remember drawing them.

At night, I wake up drenched, stomach churning, gagging like something is crawling up my spine. Once, in the bathroom mirror, I thought I saw movement ripple under my skin, just beneath my ribs. Something alive.

I tell myself it’s anxiety, but the voices won’t stop. They tell me my mother failed us. That she let us die. That she picked me and abandoned us. I can’t figure out who this us is.

Sometimes I see my mother cooking dinner and imagine stabbing her. The thought doesn’t feel like mine; it feels like someone else’s.

My body is unraveling. I yank out my hair until bald patches appear. I dig my nails into my arms until crescents of blood appear. Sometimes I find bruises I don’t remember making. I dream of teeth gnawing inside my belly. When I wake, I’m sore, like I’ve been bitten from the inside.

Then I found the scans in a folder on my mother’s desk

Three hazy orbs floating together in the first ultrasound. In the second only me, I read the neat medical term above the second: Vanishing Triplets. Completely reabsorbed into the third one.

Only I survived.

Every day, I feel less myself. My moods shift, my thoughts twist, my flesh writhes. They didn’t vanish. They’re still here. Inside. Growing.

Sometimes, when I press my hand to my stomach, something presses back.

I ask my mother to take me to a psychiatrist. She doesn’t hesitate. The next afternoon, after school, we’re ushered into Dr. Berne’s office. It smells faintly of lemon cleaner, but underneath, I swear I catch rot.

“What brings you both here?” Dr. Berne asks, folding his hands neatly.

“My daughter seems nervous all the time,” my mother says. “It’s getting worse. She’s picking at her body and frankly, I’m scared.”

Dr. Berne turns toward me, head tilted, probing. “What is going on, Devina?”

Inside, the scoffing begins. Don’t tell her. Don’t you dare. She thinks pills will drown us out. She thinks a clipboard will banish us.

I force myself to answer. “I have these compulsions to pick at my body. I want them to stop.”

Liar, they hiss. You don’t want them gone. You want to dig deeper. Peel yourself raw. Let us out.

Dr. Berne smiles, the sort of smile meant to reassure. To me, it looks like a mask pulled too tight. “I’m fairly certain your daughter has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” she tells my mother. “We’ll give her the MMPI to confirm, but I’m confident it will bear out my preliminary diagnosis.”

Diagnosis, the voices snarl. She thinks he’s named us. That old fart has no idea who we are.

Dr. Berne scribbles a prescription. “Lexapro,” she says. “It will help. And I recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with a psychologist. That will teach her how to manage the compulsions.”

My mother nods, relieved. She clutches the prescription like it’s holy writ.

Inside me, the specters laugh. Lexapro? Therapy? Foolish woman. Does she not understand? We are not compulsions. We are not symptoms. We are flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. We live in your marrow, in your heart, and in your brain. No pill will evict us. Let them try, Devina. Let them think they’re saving you. All the while, we grow stronger.

I smile faintly, the way a good patient should. Inside, I hear the monsters whisper: You’ll never get rid of us. We were here first.

The next day my mother drives me to the psychologist, Dr. Hay. His office smells like peppermint tea and old books. He smiles as if warmth could stitch me back together.

He begins gently. “I’d like to gather an extensive history, Devina.”

I nod, but I don’t answer alone. The vanished ones stir. Tell him what he wants to hear. Feed him scraps.

So I lie. I talk about nervousness, about worries that don’t matter. And the voices fill in the rest. Yes, doctor, she’s obsessed with her body. Yes, she fears blemishes and imperfections. That’s all it is. Nothing more sinister.

Dr. Hay jots notes, satisfied. “We can work together to rearrange your thoughts into more productive ones. When you catch yourself thinking something destructive, you replace it.”

Replace us? the voices hiss. We’re not walls to be papered over. We are the foundation.

He continues, unaware. “I’ll give you affirmations to practice during the day, statements about strength, safety, self-worth.”

Say them, Devina, they taunt. Say “I’m whole” while we hollow you out. Say “I am safe” while we gnaw you. His words are made of tissue paper.

Dr. Hay places a book in my hands. “I want you to keep a journal. Write down the compulsions, the thoughts, the progress.”

Yes, the voices croon. Write us into your diary. Chronicle our growth. Every word you pen is another thread binding you to us. We’ll dictate. We’ll carve our truths into your hand until you bleed.

I nod politely, pretending to agree. Dr. Hay beams, believing he’s given me tools to fight back.

But when I leave, the vanished ones whisper in triumph: His affirmations will rot in your mouth. Therapy is not a cure. It’s a cradle that we rock as we grow stronger.

They are growing powerful inside me, not whispers anymore but commands. I freeze at street corners, three paths pulling me in different directions. Friends peel away, angry at my unpredictability. My boyfriend leaves, sick of my moods. I fall in with the stoner crowd, always eager for a recruit willing to buy drugs and sink into rebellion. I drink. I drug. I let strangers touch me in ways I don’t want, because the screaming inside quiets when I drown myself in chaos. But it never lasts.

At home, I play dutiful daughter. My parents don’t deserve the monster I’ve become, so I keep my mask polished. I tell Dr. Hay the affirmations are working. I tell him that the journaling helps. I tell Dr. Berne I feel calmer. She nods, reassured in her belief in therapy. But inside, the two laugh. They sneer at my lies because they know the truth: they are no longer passengers. They are pilots.

Every day, I feel them swallowing me piece by piece. My laughter isn’t mine, my thoughts aren’t mine, my skin isn’t mine. I can’t tell where I end and they begin.

On a Saturday night, when my parents go to a movie, I make my decision. I write a suicide note, kind, composed, and full of lies. I tell them I can’t live with OCD. I tell them what wonderful parents they’ve been. I don’t mention the specters inside me. I don’t want them blamed for birthing me.

Then I take my father’s gun from the back of his closet. I sit on the edge of my bed. The barrel feels cold against my temple. I brace myself to pull the trigger.

That’s when the tug-of-war begins.

My hand jerks away from my head, then snaps back. I grip the gun tighter, then my own fingers pry at my wrist. It feels like invisible hands are wrestling for control of my body. I think of that old movie I watched with my parents, Dr. Strangelove. The scientist in the wheelchair who fought his own arm as it shot up in Nazi salutes, his body betraying him. That’s me now. Only it isn’t funny. It isn’t satire. It’s war.

I’m yanked left, right, gun swinging wildly, tears streaming down my face. My arm slams against my own ribs, then rises again, the muzzle shaking before my eye. My fingers twitch, tightening, loosening, tightening again. Two voices in my head scream they don’t want to die again.

I don’t know who won the wrestling match when everything goes dark.

Dr. Weiner has over 40 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist who
specializes in trauma recovery and anxiety disorders. He enjoys using stories
to help readers harness their resilience to aid them on their healing journey.
He has been published in a variety of professional journals and literary
fiction in over twenty-five magazines. His psychology books include Shattered
Innocence and the Curio Shop. Non-psychology publications are Across the
Borderline and The Art of Fine Whining. He has a monthly advice column in a
Portland Newspaper, AskDr.Neil.

You can find more of Neil’s work here on Ink Pantry.