Chapter Text
Okay. Next screen. Great. Scientific method.
Hypothesize…
I know that I’m standing in my classroom, but I don’t know what I’m teaching. Thank God for lesson plans.
What is her name.
What is her name.
What is her name.
She’s talking to meeee
What is her name!?
Her name is Mackenzie.
THANK YOU!
Okay. Tell Mackenzie she did a good job.
Where. The. Fuck. Is. Jenny!?
Jenny. This is your job! This isn’t my job!
Jenny!
Fuck. Okay. Okay. I got this. I got this. We’re fine. I’m fine. None of the kids are spontaneously busting into flames.
This one is Joey.
Fucking Joey. He’s a shit head
Joey is a child. He’s not a shit head.
THERE YOU ARE. HELLO. GLAD YOU DECIDED TO COME TO FUCKING FUNCTION YAAAY YOU!
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God these pants are so… big.
Why are they so big?
This is unattractive as hell? Oh Adrian is waving me down. Great. Cool. Cool. Cool. Alright, Adrian had Sarita’s class today… so…
Annnnnnd he’s talking about Anne. Of course.
Okay, but Anne’s so damn cute.
Especially now? The pink pixie? Damn. If I were him I’d be boning her all night long.
Ew.
Okay, but it’s true. Remember that night she kissed us? You know you liked that.
Fuck you.
No, fuck Anne.
Shit. What did he just say?
Ask him what he said.
I can’t ask him what he said. That’s embarrassing as fuck.
Oh! He said something about a test! We had the class take a test yesterday! Say that! Say that! That works with what he said!
SHUT UP YOU’RE BEING TOO LOUD. YOU’RE GOING TO ANNOY HIM!
He’s been working with us for years now he doesn’t care.
He’s been lying about liking us for years now. He does care.
Oh.
Duh. So shut up.
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Why is nobody home? I’m scared.
They’re on vacation.
Without me?
Yes, but they’re coming back. They’re celebrating their anniversary.
They’re not coming back.
They are coming back.
I wouldn’t come back to us. Do you see us. We’re literally on the floor in the kitchen with a tub of ice cream that is half melted on the floor and we are sobbing. Disgusting.
I want Grammy!
Grammy’s dead!
No she’s not! We’re not home!
This is our home, love. I promise we’re okay. Look at the kitties. They’re trying to be nice and help you.
Fuck the cats. They’re obnoxious. Too damn loud right now. It’s already enough listening to all you but now fucking three cats too!?
Call Rachel.
- DO NOT CALL RACHEL. SHE WILL COME THE FUCK HOME AND YOU WILL RUIN THEIR VACATION IN CONNECTICUT AND THEY WILL LEAVE YOU.
They will not come home, they will just listen while we talk You know Benny won’t let her leave unless He thought we were in danger, and we are not in danger, just having a rough patch. Things are okay.
Fuck this. Why are we here?
Who the hell is we?
I just want Grammy. Where is Grammy?
Jesus fucking Christ kid! She’s dead!
She doesn’t know what dead is, Austin she’s a child!
She’s gotta fucking learn at some point. Dead. Not coming back. Never seeing her again. He fucking cremated her and fucking Pearl over here was too fucking chicken shit to go steal her fucking ashes from your fucking sperm doner.
Austin!
Oh dear God. You think yelling is going to make her feel any better?
Who ate all the jalapeno olives? I really wanted those… I said those were for me.
Jenny shut up. If you wanted them so bad you should have taken some for lunch.
Or you can respect that I wanted olives? I got the olives.
They were sitting there for weeks. I was hungry. I ate them.
They are so gross.
Fucking hell. The cats are trying to eat the ice cream we have to pick it up.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“SHUT UP! FUCKING SHUT UP FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!” I held my head, pushing into it as tight as I could, hoping to make it go away. The loudness. The anger. The confusion.
The cats scattered. Shit. I didn’t mean to scare the cats. Why is there ice cream on the floor melted? Fuck. This is going to be a bitch to clean up. Okay Isa. You got this. You can do this.
My phone is ringing. Alright Alright. Oh. Great. Great. Great. Where are my glasses?
Fuck it I don’t need them.
“Hey baby… Isa what’s wrong?” Rachel. Oh. Okay. Cool.
“Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine.”
“Your eyes are red, and as far as I know you don’t do things that would make your eyes red.”
“Allergies.”
Whoop. Whoop. Go us. Go us. Way to think on our feet.
“Isa.” Ooph. Okay Benny, where’d you come from? What the hell?
“I’m fine!”
“Clearly you are not.”
Oh no… no no. They hate me. They hate me. They hate me. They hate me. I messed up their vacation. They’re going to make me leave.
I’m never going to be loved.
I’m not lovable.
I don’t deserve them.
Why are they here?
Why do they love us?
Who are they?
I want Grammy. Who are these people? Why do they know my name? Why are they sad? Where am I? Whose house is this? Guys… it’s messy. It’s messy. We need to clean this up! We need to clean this up! We need to now!
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“We are we are!” Isa’s voice was so small, so mousy “Fuck! I’m gonna clean it! I promise! I promise! I’m gonna clean it! I didn’t mean to! I promise!” It was a hoarse cry. “Please, I’ll clean it!”
Rachel looked to Benny, this was new. This was something they had never experienced with her before. Her face was red and swollen, her hair stuck to her face with snot and ice cream. “Isa… Isa… baby… hey hey. Benny’s calling Anne and Adrian. They’ll be over soon…”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Accidents happen.” Benny told her, putting his arms around Rachel, trying to keep her steady. “Isa, what happened, love?”
What she said was making no sense to either of them. Something with a mop, and she didn’t like vanilla ice cream. “Yeah we know you don’t like vanilla. You’re a chocolate fiend.” Benny chuckled, trying to keep it light.
“It’s not my home and it’s sticky and he’s gonna be mad!”
“Who’s going to be mad, Isa? I’m not mad, Adrian’s not going to be mad.” Benny tried to reassure her. “It’s okay.” He looked back down to his phone and then showed Rachel the text, Adrian and Anne would be there in about 10 minutes. Until then, they stay on the phone with her. “Hey, why don’t you go get Oliver? Is he in your room or on the couch?”
“This isn’t my house…”
What the did she mean this wasn’t her house? She had been living with them for two years by this point. That was just as much her house as it was theirs. “Isa, it’s your house. You live there with us. You give us rent. You pay bills. Very much your house too.”
“No. My house is green. This house is not green.”
Rachel spoke up “Alright, well either way Oliver should be there. We can help you find him, okay Isa?”
“Okay. Thank you…”
“Of course, baby. Always.” Rachel wanted to cry. She wanted to just snap her fingers and be back home, but she couldn’t. At least she seemed to be calming down. “Alright, so he should be in your room, in the basement.”
“Okay… the basement? Those are scary.”
“Our basement isn’t scary. We painted it together and your room’s down there and it’s nice and calm and cold. Like you like it. Doodle’s probably down there too.”
“Doodle’s my cat.” She was almost childlike. Her breathing was shallow still, but becoming more steady. That was something.
“Yeah, Doodle is your cat.”
“He’s silly sometimes.”
“Oh for sure. He can be very silly. He’d probably love it if you go pet him.”
“Oh okay. I can do that… but the mess on the floor. The floor! The floor! I’ll clean it!” She started screaming again. “I’m sorry!”
And then Isa hung up.
“Alright… I’m booking flights now.” Benny sighed.
Rachel turned, putting her head on his torso. “Benny…” Her voice cracked. “Benny… she’s not okay.”
“I know…” Benny set his phone down and sighed, pulling Rachel in close. “But she will be, and we’re going to be. This will be.” He rubbed her back.
“We don’t know that.”
Benny sighed. “No, we don’t, but I think it will.”
“What if she’s like… snapped?”
“Well, then we help her.” He took a hand in his and walked to the bed of their Air BnB. “But we have no clue what happened right now.”
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“I can’t tell them.” Isa squeezed the decorative pillow tightly. “They’re going to leave me. They’re going to leave me anyway and if they magically have decided not to, then they will after they learn. I can't tell them about my disorder!"
"Why not?"
"Because then they'll see how broken I really am..."
“You all say all the time how much they love you, and that they’ve loved you this whole time. Why would that change?” Brenda sat back in her chair. She wasn’t trying to accuse. She wasn’t trying to be mean. It was a simple question.
Yet the answer wasn’t.
“If I say it to them, then it’s real. And I don’t want this to be real.” Isa shivered. “We don’t want this to be real. We don’t want them to leave. They’re going to leave us!” She started to cry. “We can’t! We can’t! They don’t know us! They know who they think Isa is! They don’t know Jenny or Austin or Pearl or Li or Rachel or any of us! They know Isa and Isa isn’t real!”
“You are Isa.”
“Isa is a body! Isa is the name!” Isa screamed out. “Isa doesn’t look like me! Isa doesn’t act like me!”
“Who’s talking now?” Brenda asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Well, do you want to be heard?”
“No.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Well fuck you.”
“Isa, you are you. Each and every part of you is Isa still. All of you are Isa, and that’s okay that you don’t look the same or act the same, but at the core, each of you are the same and each of you *together* make Isa.”
“Yeah you say this shit all the time, Brenda. We know. And yes. I know. I’m technically Isa. I get that. That’s not the issue. Hell. Even these god awful glasses aren’t an issue anymore, but they see this? They’re gonna fucking run. We’re fucking insane. All 17 of us! I mean seriously! Li was full on screaming about our Grammy last night! We bit Anne! I mean who the hell bites somebody trying to help them!? Like… we tore skin. Made her bleed!” Isa shivered and started to shake her head. “No. No no no no no no. God what kind of person am I!? I bit one of my best friends! And now she’s sitting outside in the car because I’m here because I had a fucking breakdown last night!”
Brenda didn’t move “Because they love you. Your friends, your partners. They love you, and they want you to feel good just as much as you do.”
“Brenda… it’s so loud. It’s so loud all the time. I can’t make it stop. I can’t just hear one. I hear so many. And I say stupid shit and I’m too loud and I’m obnoxious and I’m rude and I’m too excitable when I get happy and people hate me. People think I’m weird and annoying… and I can’t make it stop. I try so hard… and I can’t lose them. I can’t lose them. I can’t lose the few people in my life who tolerate me.”
“They love you, Isa.”
“They love what they think is me… they won’t love the real me.”
“And why do you say that?”
Isa sniffled, clenching her jaw tight “Because I don’t deserve it.”