I told the officers in the interrogation room that I didn’t do it. I wasn’t even present in the house when it happened. You see, I knew what had happened, but I said that they wouldn’t believe me. They would think I was another nut job that was dropped on my head when I was a baby and have been screwed up ever since. But they kept telling me to tell my story, even coming close to threatening me. I was getting the Good Cop/Bad Cop treatment.

I felt my hands grasp the ends of the chair’s arms, gripping them tighter as they continue to banter me with one hell of a guilt trip. My face remained calm. I sat back in my seat.

“Go on, please tell your story,” Officer Lundy, the Good Cop told me. His voice was as slick as oil. “We’ll believe you.”

What? You want me to tell my story so that you can prove that I’m mentally insane during my trial? I don’t think so.

I told them, for an hour and a half straight to be exact (I watched the clock on the back wall for most of the time), that they wouldn’t believe my story. My story was true. It was one-hundred percent legit. None of it was fake even though it sounded like a damn fairytale.

I pressed my lips into a thin line, sealing them.

The only problem with that is that I would be stuck here until I speak.

“Alright,” I said as I flexed my fingers; they were cramped from gripping the chair’s arms for too long—for that hour and a half. There were indents on my palms from the ends of the arms. I leaned forward and folded my hands, placing them on the cold steel table. “I’ll tell you my story—”

I begin to tell them what had happened, and Detective Kristas, the Bad Cop started yelling at me half way through of how I was playing such childish games. I’m such a rotten child, apparently.

“I’m not playing any childish games with you!” I said through gritted teeth, my voice rising in anger. I was up from my seat, my hands planted on the table. One was trying to calm me down and the other was glaring daggers at me, mumbling something under their breath. I drew in a sharp breath, exhaling it as I sat back down with my hands folded. This time I kept them in my lap.

I’m not playing any childish games. This isn’t something a child would do, unless you were Damien from The Omen. I am going to prison for this. I was legal, unfortunately, and I was to be tried as an adult. I had to research prison life for a school project once. I guess I was prepared for it.

I finished telling them my story. Good Cop and Bad Cop exchange expressions. Bad Cop was fed up with me, and she left the room with a purple shaded face. Good Cop just tipped his imaginary hat with a nervous grin and followed his partner out. I sat back in the ice cold chair agitated.

Stupid cops. They will never understand. I told you that they wouldn’t believe me.

The door to the room opens again, and a man with a walrus mustache and patches of hair on the side of his head comes in. The top of his bald head is shiny under the overhead lights. Oh, look, it’s the psychiatrist my mother was seeing. I think his name was Dr. Stewart.

What’s up, Doc?

He nodded his head in a greeting manner towards me. “Saidi,” he said. He had a clipboard with paper.

Do they really think that I was lying? I told them the truth.

“Saidi, can you please tell me your story?” he asked.

I already told them my story! It was true! All of it was real!

“I know, but I would like to hear it now.”

I scoffed but then relaxed my shoulders. He is staring at me behind his round, black rimmed glasses—you know, the kind that Harry Potter wears — pen ready to scribble notes down on his clipboard paper.

I killed my parents, but it wasn’t me who did it.

“Explain,” Dr. Stewart said as he scribbled something down in his chicken scratch handwriting.

I locked myself in my room, because my parents were arguing. I hate it when they argue.

My hands clenched the arms of the chair again, but I remained contempt. Emotionless. Lifeless.

“What were they arguing about?” he asked.

You should know, Stewie, because you’ve talked to my mother in sessions. But I didn’t say that it him. I just stared him down.

“Well?”

Money. Possessions. Where they were last night. Sex.

“I’m sorry? What was the last one?” he asked.

Having an affair with the next-door neighbor. Actually, many of our neighbors. It was a typical episode of ‘Desperate Housewives’ in our home, except a lot more violent. Then it’s ‘The Sopranos’.

“Your parents were having an affair?” he asked. The sound of his pen scribbling was nerve racking.

My dad was. I found out way before my mom did. He always came home smelling like Sweet Pea.

White Jasmine.

Cucumber Melon.

Warm Vanilla Sugar.

Those products from Bath and Bodyworks.

“Go on,” Dr. Stewart said with a grunt.

I repeated that I did, but didn’t kill them. I was trapped.

“Trapped? Where? How did you feel about that?”

Not in a closet or cupboard underneath the stairs.

“Where?”

The mirror.

Dr. Stewart stopped writing and looked up at me. His eyes showed no signs of emotion. He asked again how I felt about being trapped. I bet he was playing tic-tac-toe with his inner child or doodling a comic of how crazy I was on the paper.

I told him that I felt fine. Maybe a little scared, otherwise, I was okay.

“Go on,” he urged.

It shattered. My mirror shattered in a million pieces. I didn’t hit it, but I did. And she walked out.

“Who is she? Who walked out?”

I did.

She—I mean—I grabbed myself and I got hurt.

“Hurt? How?”

Her skin. It was like the edge of glass. She grabbed me and pushed me through the broken mirror. I was in my room alone, but….

I took a breath. I don’t know why it was so much harder to tell this to Dr. Stewart than Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Blood.

It was everywhere.

On my floor, on my walls, and on me.

“Whose blood?” Dr. Stewart asked as he jotted down notes. I tried to sit up to see what he was writing or doodling.

I don’t know whose it was.

I looked into my bedroom and I saw myself on the other side, giving me a smirk. A cold chill shot down my spine as I thought about that smirk. I cringed and Dr. Stewart jotted that down. I will never forget that smirk, because it was my own.

I killed them.

She killed them.

“Does she have a name?”

I don’t know.

Through the mirror, I saw her walk out of my room, down the stairs, and go into the kitchen. The house was clean. So clean that you wouldn’t expect that our family had any problems. I tried to open the door to her bedroom, but the door was locked. I never locked my door. No matter how many times I tried kicking it down, or making a hole it, trying to take off the door knob, it would stand strong.

I heard a scream coming from the mirror. I saw her with the kitchen knife. I saw her smirking at my parents.

I paused from my story, realizing that I had to breathe; I’ve been holding my breath. I was on the edge of shaking, but I restrained myself from doing so. I looked at the black mirror that covered the whole wall to my left. I looked like a mess. Then again, it wasn’t me. It was her. There she was, staring at me through the black mirror with her demonic smirk. I looked back at Dr. Stewart who was staring at me.

I told him how she—how I—killed them.

I look at the two way mirror again as I said this. She mouthed my words as I spoke, like she knew what I was thinking, what I was going to say. She knew my every action, my every thought. She was watching me, looming over me like vulture that’s about to scoop up a rabbit. Her voice was in the back of my head. I opened my mouth.

Stab.

After stab.

After stab.

The scream that ripped through my mother’s lungs was deafening. She ran the knife over my father’s throat, silencing him for good; it was a nice, clean swipe. I loved my mother, I really did. But I don’t know why she killed her. Maybe she was fed up with my mother and her cries for help.

But she returns to the mirror. I could feel that she felt good. That she felt relieved. I see the palm of her hand hit the mirror once more, smashing it. Shards of me fall onto the floor just before my feet. As she stepped through, she grabbed me once more, the white hot pain tearing me opening, and pushed me through the mirror.

I hadn’t notice that my voice was shaky, like I was about to sob.

“And then what?” Dr. Stewart asked. He now started to sound interested in my fairytale. I relaxed again, and then calmly spoke.

I’m back in my room.

With the knife.

With the blood.

I’m the one who killed them, but I didn’t do it. It wasn’t my fault.

Why did I do it?

I have no idea. I don’t know why I did it. And I will never know why she did it.

“I didn’t kill them,” I stated. “It was her! It was me! But it wasn’t me!”

There was no way I killed them. I didn’t stab them. I didn’t kill them.

“I’m done,” I said with a straight face. I sat back in my seat once more, and folded my arms across my chest. “The End. Wasn’t that a good story? How do you feel about that story, Doc?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he scribbled something down on the paper. He then got up, nodded towards me like he greeted me, and left the room.

I swear to God, on my parent’s grave, that I didn’t do it. Why doesn’t anyone believe me? I felt myself watching me; the hairs on the back of my neck stood on their ends. My eyes flickered over to the mirror, and she’s gone. My eyes then darted over to the wall opposite of me.

She is leaning against the door with her arms folded against her chest just like me. She had that evil smirk plastered her face, but looked more beautiful than I ever could. She then started clapping; those blood stained hands were loud as they came together.

“Aren’t you a good little actress?” she asked me. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t scream; I wanted to though. I wanted to kill her. She was the face that was awake when I slept. She watched me every time I lied. She laughs when I fall. She was the blood that was right underneath my skin.

But I didn’t do it.

I didn’t kill them.

You did!

I started sobbing, saying that I was innocent. She killed them.

“Wow, trying to blame it on me,” she said as she tilted her head to the side. I was expecting her head to turn all the way around. “Playing the victim. Aren’t you cute? Why yes, I am cute, now that I mention it.”

She was still smirking as she strutted over to me. She grabbed my chin with one of her ice cold hands. I thought I felt it split open my skin, because it was so sharp. I held back the scream that was ready to burst out of me. Her eyes bore into mine, like she was trying to get me under some kind of trance. She leans forward like she was ready to kiss me. The idea of kissing myself was disturbing. She wiped a tear that streaked down my face away with her free hand, shushing me, and telling me not to cry. Everything will be alright soon.

“This,” she said in a sweet, quiet voice, “is only the beginning.