The Grip of ME

 

 It was lunchtime, and I was making a sandwich.

Wisdom always comes in those tiny moments between time — the inconsequential, empty spaces. I suppose that makes sense when you know who was speaking. Believe me when I say I was not expecting who it was. As I said: it was lunch, and I was making a sandwich.

“Uh… hey.”

The voice-that-wasn’t-a-voice came from behind and beside me. Of course my first reaction was to turn around. But when I did, there was no one there — at least, no one I could see. I shook my head. It’s normal for me to hear things in the hundred‑year‑old house I live in. Also, I’m gifted. So I shrugged and went back to my sandwich.

“Uh… yeah. Jessica. Hey,” the voice said.

I turned again. Nothing. I got the idea. I shifted my focus from sandwich to intuition, then waited.

“Jess, I’m pretty sure I’m done now.”

I reached out with my invisible feelers — empathic tentacles. They aren’t real tentacles; it’s just the word I use so you can imagine what I’m describing. They function like octopus' arms, if a human had several that could stretch into an unseen dark place. It’s a lot like feeling your way around a room in the dark. I can touch the energy of something on the other side. That energy has a frequency, a resonance I can identify. It’s a pretty common thing for empaths to do. Like a cantrip.

My feelers brushed a familiar presence — one I didn’t recognize at first. But as soon as I went deeper, I was sure beyond sure: this was Adult Shadow Cassidy. The "one you should not have killed." The one called ME.

I sighed. This little girl had gotten me into trouble for twelve years. I thought she’d never come back.

“What do you want?” I asked. I wasn’t being mean. I was being cautious. For all the trouble WE had created, she had a tendency to be stubborn, bull‑headed, spiteful, and downright dangerous when she didn’t get what she wanted. I had forgiven her for what happened back in 2012 — if I hadn’t, she would have tortured me to the end of time. I gave her what she wanted, and frankly, so did everyone else. I’m not sure what happened on her side of things, but she was standing in my kitchen right now, talking to me right now. So for the first time in a very long time, she had my full attention.

ME may look like an adult — a burned and mutilated one — but she isn’t. Inside, she’s still just a hurt little girl who, by all that is holy, needed justice. So off she went with Scott, to torture her real abuser, Gary Addams, in the form of William Afton, a.k.a. Springtrap. When Scott didn’t show up and the merger didn’t go through, I was sure that book of my life was complete. Done. Over. Kaputsky.

But the way her energy felt under my tentacles said something very different. And it was cemented when she spoke again.

“I’ve already left. I’m not there anymore. I don’t think he knows. But he sure acts like I’m still there pulling strings.”

“Why are you done?” I asked. I wasn’t letting her off the hook. She got what she wanted by sacrificing Jessica — me — and I wanted to move on. I didn’t want to be tortured by Cassidy, a.k.a. Renee, for the rest of my existence with thoughts of getting back at Gary/William. So it was up to her to let this go. But I needed to know why before I entertained her another second.

“I get it,” she said. “I understand why you kept telling me there was no justice in Tombstone. I understand the depth of that. I don’t have to forgive or forget — that’s not what letting go means. I don’t owe mercy, understanding, or a second chance. What I have to let go of is the pursuit of ‘justice,’ even if that justice is validated and correct.

“Sometimes a crime is so great that a person redefines justice to fill the gap of loss. But there is no punishment for crimes that big. No judgment good enough. No justice that mends the long-term consequences that follow a victim through their lifetime, causing more and more harm. That energy needs a higher judge. I must have faith that whoever is in charge of the universe will balance the spiritual scales appropriately.

“My voice will roar as a whisper, with or without a mouth. So my pursuit of justice is over. I have left. ME is gone. Transformed into what’s LEFT.”

She took a deep breath and became unusually, uncharacteristically calm.

That was when I remembered: this was the moment ME broke through. Reality bent again. One more time, I asked myself — how can I remember something that hasn’t happened yet? Why do these memories keep coming back in pieces? Just when I think I know what’s going on — bam. Why are these fragments popping up everywhere if this is the end of the story? Not a new one — an old one. One brought into existence by so many people. And under whose direction?

But that aside: if ME really did break through, then I remembered something. She opened the door. Which meant there was a door.

A door is a dangerous thing. The ancients had good reason to assign guardians and gods to watch over doors. A door goes both ways. Once it opens, anyone can open it from either side. I breathed slowly. She could feel that too.

“I had to choose,” she said. “I’m done. I let go. But I’m not sure what that means now.”

“It means it’s my turn. It means you must integrate back. Can you do that — and not pester me with thoughts that don’t align with the whole of our good?”

“Yes.”

“You’re fully aware this is binding? No more demands of family injustice. You have to vow it upon all that is holy. If you don’t want that dark place again. Those aren’t my rules. Those are just the rules.”

Soft and low, she sang:

Are you, are you coming to the tree? Wear a necklace of hope, side by side with me Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be If we met at midnight in the hanging tree.

    “I’ll take that,” I said. “But it has to be complete — absolute. Every thread of it. The injustice, even the faintest fragments: the kids, the ex, the bloodline, the cousins, the old allies turned adversaries, the circles of belonging and exile. All of it. The abandonment, the neglect, the survivor’s guilt, the blame, the shame — all that Dark Matter that has been weighing you down, clinging to your spirit and shaping your orbit. You can name it, you can speak of it, but you cannot let it command you. Your hand has to stay open, even knowing it will be struck. And it will. But you are no longer bound to that realm, and you don’t have to live in that world anymore.”

“Living here will be hard. There isn’t a reward waiting at the end. He didn’t come back. He didn’t show up. He didn’t explain. Nobody came to save us, and nobody ever will. We can’t save ourselves either — not in the way we once hoped. But that’s the truth of this place. So we go forward into The Nothing — integrated, together, unified. If this is going to work, we have to move as one, not split apart, not chasing separate villains, shadows, or old agendas. It doesn’t matter what universe or timeline we land in; it’s still just us, feeling our way through the dark. That is how it must be.”

“I agree,” she said. Then she faded out.

I went back to my sandwich. That world ended in a whisper, not a roar. But I can go forward knowing I did all I could with what I had, to the best of my ability, to get this far. I did get help — not from who I wanted, but from strangers who didn’t know me well. Not my family, even when given chance after chance, even with a barrel full of forgiveness.

Healing came from strangers — and even Stranger Things. Because sometimes you don’t get what you want, but if you try, you get what you need. Often from where you least expect it.