36. Maybe I'm Not Okay

                                    

                                          
There was one image in my head that I kept remembering, one that made me feel calm, peaceful almost. 
                          
It was dark, just after midnight maybe. The moon was high and bright and in front of me stood the silhouette of the forest with a bright white glow behind. It was the night I felt that I almost had control. A night where I didn't kill anybody. The dark cover of the trees had been my comfort and the only possible way to escape myself.
                          
"Em?" Dr Rhodes snapped me back to reality. 
                          
There was little character to the room we sat in and I could only think about how it needed some more colour, more life. I shifted my gaze back to the notebook she held in her hands. It looked more tattered now, more worn and filled with words I'd spoken.
                          
"Are you still with me?" 
                          
I nodded. "Absolutely."
                          
Not at all.
                          
"As I was saying, I heard you had a visitor the other day," she mentioned as she leant back in the chair. 
                          
"EDIN had a lot of visitors the other day," I pointed out. 
                          
"You know who I mean, don't you?" 
                          
It was a question designed to get a response from me, and I detested the fact that it worked. 
                          
"He wasn't a visitor," I stated.
                          
"According to Julia, he seemed to know you fairly well." She smiled too politely, over-confident in the fact she had me against a wall. "How do you know Chris?" she pried. 
                          
During the time I'd been at EDIN, only now was I starting to get annoyed that everybody talked to each other. It was like lunchroom gossip that only centred around me. 
                          
I wished it would stop.
                          
I narrowed my white eyes. My contact lenses had brought me comfort in being able to see myself again but I'd been wearing them too much. My eyes were drying out and, like me, they needed to breathe. 
                          
"It's starting to feel like a small world, isn't it?" she questioned. 
                          
"It always has."
                          
Her lips lifted into a smile. "I have something for you." 
                          
She lifted up her notebook and pulled another one from underneath. It was bound in red leather and was tattered and frayed around the edges. I felt myself relax as she held it out to me. It was familiar somehow but I didn't recognise it. 
                          
"What is it?" 
                          
The leather was smooth to the touch and had a distinct smell of ageing paper. 
                          
"I think you'll find that notebook might be more familiar than you think..."
                          
I opened the front cover and cursive writing filled the pages. There were diary entries, scribbled notes and details about the Infected. It was early into the outbreak, like someone trying to figure it all out. 
                          
"Familiar... how?" I asked as my fingertips brushed another page.
                          
"Em... That notebook is yours."
                          
As she said the words my eyes froze on one of the pages. My pulse began to quicken and my throat tightened with memories that flooded back. Dr Rhode's voice had become foggy in my ears and I was no longer listening. It was a name on the page which had caught my attention. 
                          
It was my name. 
                          
My full name. 
                          
Eva Morgan Harrison. 
                          
* * *
                          
"Eva!" my mum called out. 
                          
"What?"