The twins had threatened me with the psych ward for a year. Every time they talked to me, I was either sounding 'normal' or getting this threat. The way they made it sound tended to silence me, and since they both worked in the psych ward of a hospital, it's safe to assume they know what they are talking about. In the end, I found they were honest.

I'd been admitted to the psychiatric ward when I saw Eddie for the last time. He came to visit me, just the once. The little woman who called herself Claire, though that wasn't her name, greeted him with me. Claire was also the name of my previous employer, a small woman with her own Wikipedia page and a number of award winning documentaries in her past. I was helping her archive her film stock until she passed away. From the wind of my memories, I saw the contrast between this little woman in the psych ward and the woman I'd worked for. They were both small, very petite and less than 5 foot, with outgoing spirits. They drank small amounts of milk and smeared strange concoctions on their faces, often having bits of the stuff on their skin. The woman in the psych ward also tended to use markers from the art room to paint her face. She was burnt orange when Eddie came to the hospital, but she looked at him like he was unusual.

Are you prematurely gray, she asked him?
No, I'm 40, he answered with a laugh, looking down at her but also over her shoulder, not dropping his eyes quite enough to meet hers. He looked older there in that light.

The attendants took one look at him and shook their heads as well. Probably not his first face here, they said. From that point on it seemed everyone called me Elizabeth, which was the name of Eddie's best friend, whom I'd almost met though not quite, making her probably more than a best friend.

Still, something in my head told me to hug him, and he hugged me back and asked what happened. I never got a chance to tell him. Being in the hospital didn't seem to help me much. It was a chance to pretend I was hte person I had been before I went sour in my head. It had been much too long since I'd been that person, and hte pretending was pathetic and useless.

I spent days being resistant and being shown that I was wrong to act that way, joining in the group activities only after being gruff. I made friends with the two women who didn't really seem to speak, and had few teeth of their own, and instead had metal implants that looked like nails directly in their gums, useless for chewing. One woman came into my room while i was laying down in a chosen bed for the evening, and lowered her pants. I smiled at her and rolled over and used some bravery to close my eyes. Eddie didn't call again, the man who carried an AA bible pointed out. I didn't shit for about a week and it seemed everyone was looking for a cigarette or a laxative or iced cream.

I got out of the hospital the day of my sister's birthday, an easy date to remember. The first month of a new year. When they admitted me, the environment was full of heavy locked doors and people talking to themselves. Many hospital beds stacked into small rooms more like a shelter than a hall. I slept the first night there, having been legal bound to the place by walking into the ER. I slept a lot because they gave me pills. There was a lot of yelling, many unclean looking people, much nudity and anger. Hesitation to walk into the next person's space was confused by unclear boundaries of what these people might consider their space. When I was let out, my parents were both with me and it was sunny outside. I went out that night for a ride on my motorcycle, thinking to get a drink somewhere. At the first intersection out, a man stopped on the sidewalk and yelled out for a ride. I patted the back of my bike as though for him to sit down with me- He ran out into the intersection and did so, like in a dream of strange behavior. When we stopped, I saw that he might as well have been a third twin, he behaved and looked so much like the twins I know.

My sister's wedding soon followed. Somehow, I don't seem to be in any of the pictures. I am sure I was there.

A while later, I got into an accident on the highway. I was between lanes with a white van to one side of me and a passenger vehicle to the left. I ricocheted off the side of the van but didn't hit anything else. Didn't fall or stop in traffic or do anything but keep balance and keep going. This was not the legally appropriate move, but I was shaken and this is what happened. I had to talk to the cops. And I called John, the third twin.

He was in San Diego. I have a long history of changing men within the first three dates. They show up with a pickup truck, or a spikey goatie, or a severe leather jacket. Even men I assume I can't change, as they already fit some extreme demographic, veer into one of these categories. It's inevitable. This was something new. A man doing something good for himself, something he'd been intending fora long time, a move to save money. This was the first something new in 3 years. And a few days later, he would go back to San Diego as though I didn't exist. I woke up in his apartment more times than I fell asleep there. He knew this way to hold me against his body that wasn't humane, it was so perfect. Cruel treatment of an animal, that's one way to describe it. But I haven't made an impression on his pillows yet, so it's all fair.