Shield

y life of servitude began the minute I heard someone whimpering inside the Prater home. The front door was wide open, so I peered inside to discover Lloyd Prater badgering his daughter with a butcher knife. Bethany Prater was cowering beside the pantry with blood dripping down her cheek and wailing "Please, Daddy, you already got me, you win! Put it away. You're scaring me!"

I knew Lloyd was drunk, and he was also bluffing. He's the worst kind of wimp there is, in my opinion, and Bethany is the second worse. So I hurled myself in front of Lloyd, screaming "AAAAHHHH!" and bared my neck right in his face. "Slice it, you coward," I said, knowing he wouldn't. He tottered backward, got pissed, then grabbed a fistful of my hair to ram my head against the table. I fell to the floor and faked unconsciousness until I heard his knife drop into the sink. I squinted to see Bethany quivering, bracing her ears with both arms, then I sprang forward to bash a chair over Lloyd's head. He was easy to knock out. Most wimps are.

With Lloyd out cold and Bethany's mother gone, I led Bethany upstairs to wash her face and put her to bed. You'd think I'd have gone home after that. Now I wish I had. Instead, I kind of moved in.

Lloyd never told me to leave, never even asked me my name. Come to think of it, nobody did, not even Bethany. They were a strange bunch, the Praters, but no stranger than my own family, who hadn't even noticed my absence. Within weeks my entire past had become a blur, as though my mission in life had always been just to protect Bethany Prater.

The worst part about it was I couldn't stand Bethany. I was born rugged and independent, while Bethany was born needing something all the damn time and having no clue how to get it. If I had my way, she and her whole crazy family would just disappear, and I would go on being a normal teenager again.

One night after Lloyd had chased Bethany with a broken beer bottle, I got fed up and began making plans to leave for good. I was pacing around in Bethany's bedroom, when all of a sudden Lloyd barges in and Bethany dives under the covers and curls up, like that would really save her or something. Lloyd peels the covers off her and starts being real nice. "Daddy loves you, baby," he says, then he stretches her out so he could touch her all over.

Bethany was just lying there, her eyes all blank, and it made me want to puke. So I told Lloyd to do me instead. I don't think he heard me, but he did let me take Bethany's place on the bed. Then I really did puke, right in Lloyd's face! Pissed him off royal, but at least he left us alone. It was then that I knew I'd be stuck with Bethany for life, or until one of us died.

Bethany left home a few years later and got her own apartment. I went with her, of course, because by then she couldn't even handle answering the phone. She would never have gotten that apartment if I hadn't landed a job at the west side strip joint, the one that changes its name about every six months. The job wasn't bad, really--the guys were fine, the tips were huge, and I got free booze every night. Bethany just stayed home all day, rocking back and forth in her bedroom closet.

Then it happened. I guess it was inevitable, but it changed my life forever. I came home from work one night and found Bethany passed out on the kitchen floor. Blood was all over the place, it was oozing from her wrist. I called 911, and the next hour became total chaos with ambulance sirens and neighbors all frantic with curiosity. I rode with Bethany to the hospital and learned that the cuts were superficial and that Bethany would live after all. But then they shipped her off to the state hospital because she refused to speak. Go figure. Anyway, I quit my job and went to the state hospital with her. The strange part is that nobody even asked me my name or told me I couldn't go. I was beginning to wonder if I had died awhile back and had since become Bethany's guardian angel. My mind is still spinning over the truth of it all.

Bethany had been in the state hospital for nearly two months, and she was seeing Dr. Holden four times a week. He didn't usually see patients that often, but he said Bethany was an exception, an "enigma" he called her, and that he couldn't rest until he figured her out. I interrupted one of the sessions, right when Bethany went comatose over Dr. Holden's question about her father. I said, "He was the most disgusting bastard on the face of this godforsaken earth."

"Bethany!" he cried. "That's the most powerful thing I've ever heard you say! Go on, my dear, please go on!"

That really pissed me off. "In case you haven't noticed," I said, "I am not Bethany, and I'm getting fed up with you people calling me that."

The doctor's eyes got real wide, like he was noticing my presence for the first time. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Who are you then?"

"I'm Avis. I weigh about twenty pounds more than Bethany, you moron. Can't you see my hair is blonde and my eyes are green? How do you mix us up like that?" Of course Bethany didn't offer to defend me. She just turned into a dumbstruck shadow.

"How old are you, Avis?" the doctor asked.

"I'm sixteen, going on eighty. What difference does it make how old I am?"

"What year were you born?" I knew he was getting at something, but I didn't know what.

"What year?" My mind went blank. It was embarrassing. "I... uh... I don't know, Doc."

"Do you remember how old you were when you first met Bethany?"

"I was sixteen," I said, feeling my heart get all jittery.

"And how long have you known Bethany?"

"Four or five years at least."

"Nobody can be sixteen for four or five years," he said. I looked at Bethany for a possible explanation, but she just sat there with a stupid look on her face.

"Are you calling me a liar?" I finally asked.

"No, dear. You're not a liar. But you're not a person, either."

"Okay, Doc," I said, ready to play his little mind game. "Then what am I?"

"How do I put this?" I could tell he was getting nervous by the way he was stroking his moustache. "When I look at you, I see Bethany," he said. "You are not a real person, Avis. You are a personality."

I thought I would die right then. Either this guy was nuts or I was headed there. Then I looked at Bethany sitting there all sullen, and I remembered that she was the reason we were all in this situation to begin with. "Even if what you say is true," I said, "then what makes you think I'm the 'personality' and not Bethany?"

"Why would you create another personality? You don't need anyone, Avis, but take a good look at Bethany. She created you for her own protection."

"Bethany created me?" I asked. "But she can't even create a conversation." I was getting impatient, maybe a little scared, and my jeans were feeling awfully tight all of a sudden. "I don't know much about multiple personalities," I said, "but I do know that I'm not about to fuse myself with a dimwit like Bethany Prater!"

"Integration is the standard treatment," Dr. Holden said. He was shielding his glasses, waiting for a bomb I guess.

"Oh yeah? Well, if I were to integrate with Bethany, I'd be swallowed up into nothingness," I said. "Face it, Doc, without me, there would be no personality. Yet you're suggesting I just crumble under Bethany's pathetic existence where, by the way, I'd be forced to create another personality to protect us both? So tell me, Doc, where would it all end?"

"I see your point, Avis. I really do. That's why my main concern is to help Bethany become strong enough so that neither of you will ever need protection again."

That was all I needed to hear. Just the thought of Bethany ever becoming strong made me laugh so hard, I thought my guts would bust out. I didn't let on why I was laughing, either, and Dr. Holden didn't ask. And poor Bethany, with her ashen eyes and her matted black hair, she never even heard me.