Chapter 4 Truth Revealed

# Chapter 4: Truth Revealed

The next morning, I called in sick to the hospital for the first time in my career. My head throbbed from a night spent alternating between fits of crying and staring blankly at the ceiling. The encounter with James had left me exposed, vulnerable in a way I'd never experienced. It was only a matter of time before my carefully constructed worlds collapsed entirely.

I'd tried calling Zane repeatedly, but he wouldn't answer. His silence was a new kind of pain—sharp and insistent. Evan had texted his usual morning greeting, blissfully unaware that his girlfriend's life was imploding.

By noon, I couldn't bear the solitude of my apartment any longer. I called the one person who might understand.

"You sound terrible," Alicia said when she arrived with takeout and sympathy. "What happened?"

I recounted the previous night's disaster while she listened, her expression shifting from concern to dismay.

"It was bound to happen eventually," she said gently, passing me a container of soup I had no appetite for. "You can't live two separate lives forever, Clara."

"I know," I whispered. "But I never meant to hurt either of them."

"Intentions don't matter much when you're lying to people who love you," Alicia replied, her bluntness softened by genuine care. "What are you going to do now?"

Before I could answer, my doorbell rang. Alicia and I exchanged alarmed glances.

"Are you expecting someone?" she asked.

I shook my head, dread pooling in my stomach. Crossing to the door, I checked the peephole and felt the blood drain from my face.

Evan.

"It's Evan," I hissed to Alicia. "Why is he here? He should be at work!"

"Maybe he heard you were sick?" she suggested, quickly gathering the takeout containers. "I'll slip out the back. Good luck."

As Alicia disappeared into my bedroom to exit through the fire escape, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Evan stood there, his usual warm smile replaced by an expression I couldn't quite read. In his hand was a bouquet of daisies—my favorite.

"Evan," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "This is a surprise."

"I heard you called in sick," he said, stepping inside when I moved back. "I was worried. You never get sick."

He was right. Clara was never sick. Clara was reliable, dependable, always present.

"Just a migraine," I lied, accepting the flowers with murmured thanks. "I should be fine tomorrow."

Evan nodded, but his eyes were scanning my face too intently. "You look like you've been crying."

"Pain does that," I said, turning away to put the flowers in water. "You didn't need to leave work."

"Actually, I came because I ran into James this morning."

The glass vase slipped from my hands, crashing into the sink. Miraculously, it didn't break.

"Oh?" My voice sounded distant to my own ears.

"He mentioned seeing you last night. At some club downtown." Evan's tone was carefully neutral. "Said you were with a man. Called yourself Vera."

The moment I'd been dreading had arrived. I gripped the edge of the counter, my back still to him, unable to face the hurt I knew I would see.

"Clara," Evan's voice was soft but firm. "Look at me."

Slowly, I turned. His blue eyes, usually so gentle, were clouded with confusion and pain.

"I need you to tell me what's going on," he said. "The truth."

The truth. Such a simple concept, yet I'd been running from it for so long I wasn't sure I remembered what it looked like.

"I should sit down for this," I said weakly, moving to the couch. Evan followed, maintaining a careful distance between us as he sat.

"I've been living two lives," I began, the words feeling strange on my tongue. "During the day, I'm Clara—the doctor, your girlfriend, the person you know. But at night, sometimes, I become someone else. I call her Vera."

Evan's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, you 'become someone else'?"

"It's like I transform into a completely different person. Vera is everything Clara isn't—spontaneous, reckless, free." I swallowed hard. "And Vera has been seeing someone else. A man named Zane."

The color drained from Evan's face. "You've been cheating on me? For how long?"

"Six months," I admitted, each word a knife in my chest. "But it's more complicated than just cheating. When I'm with Zane, I'm not Clara. I'm Vera. It's like... like I have two separate personalities."

"That's convenient," Evan said, his voice hardening. "Create an alter ego so you don't have to take responsibility for betraying me?"

"It's not like that," I insisted, tears welling in my eyes. "I never planned this. It just... happened. I started going out at night, being someone different, and then I met Zane, and..."

"And you've been lying to me for half a year." Evan stood abruptly, pacing to the window. "Does he know about me?"

I lowered my gaze. "He didn't. Until last night."

Evan laughed bitterly. "So you've been lying to both of us. Perfect."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, knowing how inadequate the words were. "I never meant to hurt you."

"But you did," he said, turning back to face me. His eyes were bright with unshed tears. "You know what the worst part is? I've been planning our future together. I've been imagining our life in that apartment, maybe starting a family someday. And all this time, you've been living a whole other life with someone else."

His words cut deeper than any scalpel. The future he described—the one Clara wanted—seemed to shimmer and fade before my eyes.

"I think I'm sick," I said finally, the admission tearing from somewhere deep inside me. "There's something wrong with me, Evan. Normal people don't do this. They don't split themselves in two."

Something in my voice must have reached him because his expression softened slightly. He was, after all, a fundamentally kind man—it was one of the reasons Clara loved him.

"Have you talked to anyone about this? A therapist?" he asked, the anger in his voice tempered now with concern.

I shook my head. "I've been afraid to. Afraid they'd tell me I'm crazy. That I have some kind of... disorder."

Evan was quiet for a long moment, processing. "You need help, Clara. Professional help."

"I know," I admitted. The pretense was over. The walls between my two lives had crumbled, leaving me exposed and terrified. "Will you... will you help me find someone?"

Before Evan could answer, a pounding on my door made us both jump.

"Clara! I know you're in there! Open the damn door!"

Zane's voice, raw with emotion, carried clearly through the apartment. Evan's head snapped toward the sound, his expression darkening.

"Is that him?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

I nodded, frozen in place as the pounding continued.

"I'm not leaving until we talk!" Zane shouted. "Your coworker told me where you live!"

James again. My past was catching up with me from all directions.

Evan moved toward the door, determination in his stride. "I'll handle this."

"Evan, no—" I started, but he was already turning the knob.

The door swung open to reveal Zane, fist raised to continue his assault on my door. He lowered it slowly, taking in the sight of Evan blocking his path.

"Who the hell are you?" Zane demanded, though I could see in his eyes he already knew the answer.

"I'm Evan. Clara's boyfriend." Evan's voice was controlled, but I could sense the tension vibrating through him. "And you must be the man she's been pretending to be someone else with."

Zane's gaze moved past Evan to find me standing in the living room, wide-eyed and trembling.

"So it's true," he said, his voice hollow. "Everything was a lie."

"Not everything," I said desperately, moving toward the door. "Zane, please—"

"Don't," he warned, holding up a hand to stop me. "I just came to hear it from you directly. I needed to know if I imagined the whole thing—if the woman I've been falling in love with even exists."

His words landed like physical blows. Behind me, I heard Evan inhale sharply.

"Falling in love?" Evan echoed. "How long has this been going on?"

"Six months," Zane replied, his eyes never leaving my face. "Though apparently I've been dating someone named Clara, not Vera."

"And I've been with her for two years," Evan countered, an edge to his voice. "She belongs with me."

"She doesn't belong to either of us," Zane snapped. "She's been playing us both."

The two men squared off in my doorway, the tension between them palpable. I'd never seen Evan look so angry, his usual calm replaced by a barely contained fury. And Zane, normally so confident, looked wounded beneath his aggressive stance.

"Stop it, both of you," I said, finding my voice at last. "This isn't about ownership. This is about me being... broken."

My words hung in the air, raw and honest. Both men turned to look at me.

"I need help," I continued, tears streaming freely now. "I think I have a serious psychological problem. I've been living as two different people, loving two different men, and I don't know how to stop."

The admission seemed to take the fight out of both of them. Evan's shoulders slumped, while Zane ran a hand through his dark hair, his expression shifting from anger to something more complex.

"You should come in," I said to Zane. "We need to talk—all three of us."

To my surprise, both men nodded. The next hour was the most surreal of my life. Seated in my living room were the two men I'd kept carefully separated for months, now facing each other across my coffee table. The air was thick with tension, but there was also a strange relief in having everything out in the open at last.

"So let me get this straight," Zane said after I'd explained everything. "When you're with me, you call yourself Vera. You dress differently, act differently, even made up a fake job."

"Yes," I admitted. "When I'm Vera, I feel... free. Uninhibited. Like I can do and be anything."

"And when you're with me, you're Clara," Evan added, his voice tight. "Responsible. Controlled."

I nodded miserably. "Clara is who I've always been. The good girl. The achiever. But sometimes it feels like a prison, like I'm suffocating under all those expectations."

"So you created Vera as an escape," Evan concluded.

"I didn't create her consciously," I said. "It just... happened. Like something inside me split open, and she emerged."

Zane leaned forward. "Have you ever been diagnosed with anything? Multiple personality disorder or something?"

"Dissociative identity disorder," Evan corrected automatically. "And no, she hasn't seen anyone."

"I was afraid," I admitted. "Afraid of what they might say. Afraid they'd tell me I was crazy."

The room fell silent. Through the window, I could see the afternoon light fading. Clara should be preparing for her evening shift at the hospital. Vera would soon be waking, eager for another night with Zane. But both women were trapped here in this room, exposed and vulnerable.

"You need professional help," Evan said finally, echoing his earlier statement. "This isn't something we can fix."

To my surprise, Zane nodded in agreement. "For once, I agree with the boyfriend. You need a doctor."

"I am a doctor," I said weakly.

"A different kind of doctor," Zane replied, a ghost of his usual smirk appearing briefly before fading.

Evan pulled out his phone. "I have a friend who's a psychiatrist. Dr. Miriam Chen. She specializes in dissociative disorders." He looked up at me. "I can call her right now."

I hesitated, fear coursing through me. Seeking help meant acknowledging that something was truly wrong with me. It meant facing the possibility that neither Clara nor Vera was entirely real—that I was something else altogether.

But looking at the two men before me—both hurt by my deception, both still concerned for my welfare despite everything—I knew I had no choice.

"Call her," I said.

As Evan stepped into the hallway to make the call, Zane and I were left alone. The silence between us was heavy with unspoken words.

"I'm sorry," I said finally. "What I did to you was unforgivable."

Zane studied me for a long moment. "You know what's crazy? I'm looking at you now—hair pulled back, no makeup, wearing Clara's clothes—and I still see Vera in your eyes. Still feel that connection."

His words sent a pang through my chest. "I never faked how I felt about you," I said softly. "That was real, even if Vera isn't."

"But she isn't real," Zane replied, a note of sadness in his voice. "She's a part of you that you let out at night, like some kind of emotional werewolf."

Despite everything, the description made me laugh—a short, painful sound that quickly died.

"I don't know who I am anymore," I confessed. "Clara or Vera or someone else entirely."

Zane reached across and took my hand. The gesture was so unexpected that fresh tears sprang to my eyes.

"Then I guess you better figure it out," he said simply.

Evan returned, his expression somber. "Miriam can see you tomorrow morning at nine. She's canceling another appointment for this."

"Thank you," I said, meaning it more than he could know.

The three of us sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment before Zane stood. "I should go," he said. "This is... a lot."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He moved toward the door, then paused, turning back.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I hope you find yourself, whoever that is."

After he left, Evan and I remained seated, the space between us on the couch feeling like an unbridgeable chasm.

"Will you come with me tomorrow?" I asked finally. "To see Dr. Chen?"

Evan was quiet for so long I thought he might refuse. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy with emotion.

"I'll come," he said. "But I don't know what happens after that, Clara. I don't know if I can..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. I had shattered his trust, broken the future we'd been planning together. Whatever happened next—whether Clara survived, or Vera, or some new integration of both—nothing would ever be the same.

"I understand," I whispered. "Thank you for not leaving right now."

Evan's eyes, when they met mine, were filled with a complex mixture of love and hurt. "I couldn't leave if I wanted to," he admitted. "I still love you, Clara. Even knowing everything, I still love you. And that's the hardest part of all."

As night fell outside my window, I realized that for the first time in months, neither Clara nor Vera would be making an appearance. Tonight, I would simply be myself—broken, exposed, but finally honest.

Tomorrow, with Dr. Chen's help, I would begin the process of discovering who that person really was.