“Cyndi—er, Dr. Elston, I don’t think this is working.” Max crosses his legs and reclines back into the chair. The imprints of palm sweat he has left on the side arms dully catches my attention.
“You can call me Cyndie, Max, I already told you,” I softly remind him, “And it’s only been two weeks. Memories that have been engrained in your mind for years take time to come undone, if they do at all.”
“Did you know that when asked to come up with a fake name on the spot, people usually choose a name that starts with ‘A’?” Max’s breaths are shallow and strained. I won’t jot that down right this moment because his eyes are all over the place, flittering around. He’s worse than I thought.
“Maybe that’s why I tend to tell the people at Starbucks that my name is Anna,” I say, adding a light chuckle for good measure. I don’t want to ramp up the intensity just yet. “Tell me about your childhood, Max.”
“Erm, I had a big brother. I had parents. That’s pretty much it,” he says quickly.
“Tell me more about… your big brother,” I prod.
  His face scrunches under my words. It literally scrunches—his dark eyes sink, his face turns awfully pallid and he squirms.  “Y-you mean Andy? Okay. Okay,” he repeats, exhaling loudly, “Three years older than me. He’d be thirty now if he was alive, actually. That’s crazy. Okay, anyway. Andy. I don’t think he ever really liked me. He-he’d hurt me, pick on me. And when I’d tell on him to mom and dad, they’d never believe me. They’d never listen. As if it was impossible for Andy to do anything at all. Then one day he was poking me. W-with this terribly sharp stick and it hurt, Cyndie, it really did. But at that point he-he trips over this rocks and he falls onto to a patch of hay that actually was covering a pit. The fall was enough to take him out. Permanently.”
“I’m sorry,” I sympathize, “I really am. But you have to understand, even though you must be feeling guilty that you were with him, you couldn’t have prevented this.”
It’s my second time this week listening to this story. I wonder if Max knows I’ve already asked him about it. I think he does, taking in hand how smart he’s considered out there, in the real world. When he first sauntered in, I thought it was impossible. Him, with his clean-cut suit and smug ‘con-man’ grin, coming in for therapy. But if there’s one thing therapy has taught me, it’s that anything is possible. Pigs flying and trees that grow money are rational in the land of  perturbed personalities.
“After him, my life’s become unraveled, Cyndie. It’s so hard to go out there and act out this facade of Mr.Smart-Guy. So hard.” He sighs and cradles his head in his hands. “I’d be done if it weren’t for those phone calls,” he mutters under his breath.
“What phone calls?”
“Phone calls? H-how—you know?”
“You just said it.” His eyes are daunting and unprecedentedly startled. “I-I did? Oh god, he’s going to get so mad.”
“Max, who said what?”
He’s panting as he knots his fingers through his dark hair. Then suddenly:
“You won’t tell anyone?”
“No, Max. I promise, I won’t.” Unless it gives me enough evidence to turn you over to a psychiatrist.
His leg suddenly proceeds to jiggle up and down. I force myself to avert my eyes from the distraction.
“He calls me every morning and tells me what to do. He gives me advice, gives me a list of things I should do to make me progress at work, and he gives me the confidence I need to fool everyone. He says he can make my life a success but that if I tell anyone about him, he can break me down faster than he built me up.”
“And who exactly is this man? Andy?”
“Andy?” Max stares at me with raw bewilderment. “Where’d you get that idea from? Andy… Andy’s long gone. I told you he died. But this guy, he knows everything. It-it’s almost like he’s God.”
“Max, are you sure you’re getting these phone calls?”
“Oh great. Now you think I’m crazy. That’s wonderful, just what I need.”
“Wait, Max!” I jump to my feet and clasp on to the cuff of his sleeve before he can ease his way past me. “I believe you. I… I just want to talk to this man.”
He’s already shaking his head long before I’d ended my sentence.  “No way. Nada. No chance. I-I just can’t, I told you what he—“
“Please, Max, it’s for your betterment,” I say, clutching his hands in my palms.
“Uhh… okay.” He straightens and lowers his voice by several octaves. “Come to my apartment by 8 in the morning tomorrow. You have my address.”
I nod and purse my lips until I hear the door lock shut behind him. That’s when I let out a hearty chuckle.
                                            ***
I don’t usually head over to my clients’ homes, but then again, none of my clients have issues as serious as Max does.
The hallway to his apartment is a grimy, off-white and the carpets are tattered near the edges, worn-out. I can’t help but shift to inhaling through my mouth to keep from visually tasting the flesh of a rotten fish. I’m already regretting my decision.
After knocking, it takes Max no less than two seconds to answer the door before I’m ushered inside.
“Thanks for coming on time.”
“Punctuality is victory,” I comment absentmindedly, while scouring the room. It’s unusually tidy—everything has its own designated area, even the pile of crumbs tucked neatly behind the trash can.
“He calls at eight thirty everyday.” Both our eyes move to the clock above the dining table where the phone sits. It reads 8:03.
“Then all we can do is wait, I guess.” Forty minutes of gruesome silence and awkward glances pass by before my seat makes a severe screeching sound against the wood and I push myself up and out of it.
“Max, I have my next client at 9:30. I need to get to my office.”
As soon as I see his mouth opening, I spin on my heel and am halfway across the room to the door when the phone rings.
“It’s him, it’s him. Oh God,” Max shivers. “Okay. I can do this.” He picks up the phone and puts it on speaker so I can hear.
“H-hello?” he whispers.
“Oh, Max. Maximillian Edward Rogers. Oh buddy, oh pal. What did you do? What in the world did you do?”
My stomach curdles. The man’s voice is husky and arrogant. Within a gloomy morning and an eerie silence, it sounds terribly petrifying. But there is, however, something in his voice that sets the gears in my head churning.
“I told you, time and again, this is between us, Max. You and me. No one else.” The voice lets out a jaded sigh between his bitter laughs. “You don’t believe I can hurt you, do you? Well then, let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Poor Max, telling the story of how his brother Andy died from tripping over a rock. Do you want to tell the world, buddy, or should I?”
Max is a ghostly shade of white and he’s shaking. “P-please don’t—“
“You killed Andy. You killed your own flesh and blood by pushing him into the hay so he fell. This is only the start, Max. I can go on and on about every single, little thing you’ve done wrong in your life. I’ve got it all down, believe me. I am practically you. We are one. You think that since Dr. Elston is here with you, that you can get rid of me? Well think again, Maxy, think again and be prepared for the downfall of you and everyone else around you.”
My hands are trembling. My face feels numb and suddenly, I’m feeling deathly cold.
“I-I’m sorry, Dr. Elston, I-I didn’t intentionally kill him. I’m not a killer. I-I was nine, I ne-never knew there was a pit—“
“Who knew that you killed Andy?” I asked tensely. Max flinches in response.
I repeated, “Who knew that you killed Andy?”
“Nobody! I swear on my life, I never told a soul. I’d rather kill myself than tell people my brother died because of me!”
“How does he know, Max? How does he know that I’m here?” My voice has escalated from a quiver into agitated yells, but I can’t help it. “Who did you tell Max, because I know I didn’t tell anyone where I was going today!”
“I didn’t tell anyone! I didn’t tell anyone!”
He runs from the room and out the door before I can say anything else.
                                           ***
“Come on, Cyndie, seriously? You, of all people? Don’t tell me that your crazy clients are rubbing off on you.”
I give my sister a glare to set her in place. She’s too busy running her fingers over the vase near the window to give any heed to my gesture.
“I was there, Lori. The man’s voice addressed me. He knew I was there. I’m not crazy, I’m the sane one and I know something is wrong. I-I should be reporting it to the police.” “You go ahead and do that,” Lori says, shaking her head, “Mom told you it wasn’t a good idea to go into psychiatry. For god’s sake, you’re twenty-four. Your brain doesn’t even fully develop until you’re twenty-five!”
“It’s therapy, Lori. And I’m going to call his mom for some answers.” I flip through my files until I fish out a stack whose papers instill the reassurance in me once again. “His close contacts are all in here. I make sure to get them all down before the sessions begin.”
“Whatever. Just do this fast, sis, my lunch break ends in twenty.”
The phone clamps to my skin because of its warmth. All I can think of besides the sound of monotonous rings in my ear, is how I don’t want to find out what this mystery man is capable of doing.
A woman answers and instantly a dreadful alleviation sparks right beneath my skin. It’s the first time I’ve ever endured a sensation like this and it frightens me.
Lori is watching me and I watch her while my mouth does the works. All I can really hear  throughout the conversation is the sound of my heartbeat in my throat and the pulse of blood rushing in my temples. Then, suddenly it all becomes clear to me.
“Thank you, Mrs. Rogers. Thank you for time. Thank you.”
“That’s a lot of thank you’s,” Lori says.
For a prolonged moment, I can’t do anything but sit there, in shock and confinement, with my mouth hanging open.
“Cyndie? Cyndie?” Lori rushes to sit in front of me. “Okay… I get it. Something’s actually wrong. Now shut your mouth and tell me why you’re suddenly so pale.”
“There’s no brother.” “What?”
“Lori, there’s no brother,” I say slowly, “His mother and father confirmed that his brother…never existed.”
“So he did or didn’t kill his brother?”
“Neither. It’s all in his head.”
And that’s when the last of the puzzle clicked in my head.
“I know why that voice on the phone was so familiar. That’s because it’s Max’s own voice.”
“What?” Lori ogles at me. “He’s calling himself?”
“That’s exactly what he’s doing.”
Lori places a comforting on my shoulder. “Cyndie, you must be sick. Take a break, please, for all of us.”
“He’s calling himself but he doesn’t know it, you idiot! During the call, the voice never once waited for a response. It went on talking, just like… it was recorded prior to the call. It even mentioned that Max and him were one person. It wasn’t lying.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I studied this once. It’s called a split-personality disorder. It’s like an alter ego of his. He’ll transform into an entire other person with another personality and he won’t know it. Max told me that the voice tells him how to succeed in life and that it gives him confidence by telling him things that happen only in his life. That’s because it’s the more confident side of Max, the person that he becomes, telling him what to do by recording these messages for him on the phone, but he doesn’t realize that it’s happening. I-I knew it. Something was wrong and he was trying to hint at it but I completely—ugh!”
“Now what?” Lori asks quietly. “I don’t want you near him. If his other-persona-thing keeps his promise about troubling the people around Max, you’re gonna get hurt.”
“Lori, I’ve got to talk to Max. If he knows what’s happening to him, then maybe—“
“Cyndie, I’ve heard this disorder and I have psychiatrist friends that tell me things. He might… not be himself when you meet him and he may end up hurting you because he’s his other persona and he won’t be capable of having his normal feelings.”
“He confided in me, Lori. He pays me to help him. It’s what I signed up for.”
I dart out of my office door to leave Lori yelling after me.
                                          ***
“Max! Max!” I call, when I’m in the hallway of his apartment. I pound on the door and it cracks open by itself.
“Max?”
I tread silently into his place. It embodies the same uncanny aura as it did when I was here today morning.
I’ve already tried multiple of his phone numbers, but he hasn’t picked up any of them. I’m not sure if I should be more vigilant, now that I know there is a possibility of either finding Max as himself or his alter-ego. It takes me only minutes to realize that the place is empty and that most of his belongings are gone.                                                                                                    Time and again, I’ve checked day after day, but it’s been like this for the past four years, deserted, abandoned. For the entire first year, Lori and Mom knew that everyday after work I’d spend the following half an hour driving to his apartment that was still unattended and unlocked, to peek my head in, maybe peer around if I was in the mood. I believed he wasn’t dead, I still do, because for some reason there is a charisma to his apartment. It carries the scent of aliveness, the essence of vitality, and I can feel it when I breathe.
Lori referred to it as an addiction, Mom called it an unhealthy obsession. But there’s an incessant fear that pricks at me, like a needle digging into my conscience, telling me that the day I stop looking for him becomes the day that his unresolved vows forecast into reality. With Lori and Mom on my back, chastising me to get over it and come to the conclusion that he’s in a better place, I decided to let them know I stopped. They believed me then, and they still do now. But I’m not so sure that I can believe in myself.
I’m content, I have a fairly safe life and I’m reminded of the successful work I’ve completed from the number of people that are much happier now because I’ve helped them, but nothing seems to work anymore. I’ve kept asking myself, from the first time I told Lori and Mom that I’d stopped checking for him, to the moment I’m walking down the familiar hallway right now.
What’s wrong with you? Why are you still here?
I give the door a rough shove and that’s all it takes to open up. I can still remember the first time I’d walked in here, the neatness, the obscure serenity. The feeling is still the same, but now it embodies a gruesome taste with its darkness and dust sprinkled over everything except the stool that I sometimes sit on.
I inhale and exhale loudly, like I do every time. I’d given up calling his name after the first month.  Why are you still here?
“This is the last time, Cyndie,” I say finally. “Never again are you setting foot in this apartment.”
Then I spin on my heel and am halfway across the room to the door when the phone rings.
The goosebumps on my flesh pucker. I didn’t even know the phone still worked.
Every part of me is writhing in dread. They’re telling me to not do it, to not pick up the phone. But I do, anyway.
“Hello?”
There’s a pause and then an arrogant chuckle. “Hello, Cyndie.”