Close Your Eyes: A gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist!. Darren O’Sullivan
look at the robot Katie and me made.’
‘Wow, did you two really make this?’
‘Yep’
‘All by yourselves?’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s amazing. You are both very clever.’
‘Well, Thomas did most of the building, I just helped where I could,’ Katie said, focusing on Thomas as she spoke.
‘Well then, I’m even more impressed. Bit of a clever one, aren’t you?’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, look at your robot. I doubt there is anything you can’t do. Are you two hungry? Shall I make some breakfast?’
‘Not yet, Daddy.’
‘Okay, no rush.’
‘What time are you meeting Will today?’ Katie asked, her smile shrinking, morphing into a tight one that she always held firmly in place when she was trying not to be worried about how I would feel after seeing my therapist.
‘Not till 2.30, so we can take our time this morning.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
‘No it’s okay. I’ll drop Thomas back at his mum’s earlier than usual this week.’
‘Daddy, can I stay up here and play a little longer? I want to build a racing car.’
‘Of course you can. Do you want me to help?’
‘No. I want Katie to.’
‘You want Katie to?’ I said looking once again to my girlfriend, not even trying to supress my smile.
‘Right, I’ll leave you two to it. I’ll be downstairs, come down whenever you’re ready.’
Once downstairs I flicked on the kettle before sitting at my kitchen table. I quietly drank my coffee and looked into my garden as the lazy sun forced its way over the horizon and listened to them talk above my head. Thomas laughed, his infectious giggle making Katie laugh as well.
Not knowing my past is a huge part of my present, and the questions that remain unanswered about me will be ones I will carry forever. But, listening to my son and my love playing in a bedroom above me, I let myself believe that the questions I had, scars I carried, wouldn’t be the future of me.
The future was now. The future was upstairs and everything about it was definitely real.
Daniel
Stamford
29th December 2017, 3.18 p.m.
It turned out I didn’t need to take Thomas back to his mother’s early after all, as Katie suggested that they went to the park to play whilst I met up with Will. Then we could take Thomas back to his mum’s together. Before I could say anything, Tom was putting his shoes on to leave.
‘Are you sure, Katie?’
‘Of course. We’ve not spent this much time together before.’
‘Honestly, it doesn’t matter if we take him back.’
‘Dan, honestly. It will be fine. I love your little boy. I want to spend some time alone with him.’
‘Katie, come on, let’s go!’ Thomas said, pulling on her jumper and away from me.
‘Right, you need to wear a hat and gloves, it’s freezing out there today,’ she said playfully whilst trying to wrestle his coat on. I asked if she needed a hand, but she told me she was fine.
I had known Katie for two years. She had known Thomas for just over one, and after kissing them both I watched them walk out of the house without me for the first time. It felt good, and weird all at once.
With the house quiet, I got myself ready and drove to Will’s for our session. The hour we spent together mostly followed the same routine as usual, we talked about how I’m feeling, I told him about how I remembered the taste of blood in my mouth, and the pain of a broken bone.
‘Have you told anyone about this?’ he asked.
‘Yes, my mother.’
‘But not Katie?’
‘No, not Katie.’
‘What did your mum say?’
‘She laughed and told me I had been watching too many action movies.’
He agreed; it was my imagination faking memories. I knew the term for it, confabulation. It was common for people with my condition.
As I left we scheduled our next meeting to be just after the Easter weekend. But he told me if anything new happened that I wanted to talk through, he was always on the end of the phone.
In the car on the way back I let myself reflect on my chance encounter with Katie; I often did so after seeing Will. I guess it was because with Will we spoke of a past I didn’t know, but thinking about how Katie and I met, that was from a past I did and our memories, our past, helped me supress the knot in my stomach that sometimes swelled.
Pulling up on the side of the road by the park, I could see the two people I love the most in the distance. He was climbing the ladder to the top of the slide and Katie stood close by, her face glowing in the cold weather. As I walked towards them I took it all in. The crisp winter air, the sound of the breeze creaking through the limbs of the exposed trees. Thomas’s laugh over it. Her laugh. Bright and unreserved.
Thomas saw me approaching and waved. I was expecting him to run over for a cuddle, but he was so wrapped up in playing that he carried on running from the slide to the swings, dragging Katie with him. He climbed into the bucket seat and asked Katie to push him. It warmed me despite it being so cold that the frost had not melted from the night before. I watched them, not wanting to interrupt for a few minutes, and then glanced down at my watch and sighed. It was nearly time to go. It would be getting dark soon. But I didn’t want to move, I wanted to stay in this moment forever. The cold air, the warm laughs.
Thomas shouted for Katie to push him harder, although she was clearly pushing with all of her strength. He was swinging so high it made my stomach turn. Each time he swung into the air I was sure he would shoot off the seat and fly ten feet into the air before hitting the frozen floor. I felt my muscles in my legs ready to spring, my arms ready to catch. He was screaming and for a moment I saw a flash of something from before. It was dark, almost pitch black, a woman’s scream echoed, her shrill bouncing off a low ceiling, and I was running, hard, and crashed through a door.
As quick as it landed it was gone. It took me a moment to realize he was screaming in glee and she was smiling and making rocket noises behind him. He was fine. They both were. Katie looked at me, a quizzical expression on her face. She had seen my reaction. I smiled weakly at her, trying to assure her that everything was fine. No doubt another moment of confabulation; I had seen something similar on the BBC perhaps, and mistaken it for a memory.
I turned my attention back to Thomas, shaking the last of the adrenaline that shot into my chest. I looked at his hands wrapped around the freezing chains, and his feet dragging across the ground each time he passed. It amazed me how big he was getting. Time moving at a pace that I couldn’t keep up with changing him from a defenceless baby, to a gabbling toddler, to a little boy with his own mind and ideas and plans for who he wanted to be. Thomas shouted he was going to be sick and the swing slowed down, being grabbed from behind by Katie to help the process.
I watched as he jumped off, and grabbing her hand he dragged her to the roundabout to push him on it. She smiled over at me and I smiled back. She was good with him and looked so happy. I wanted to get up and join in, but it was important for them to have their time alone.
There was no doubt that Katie