They Locked Me Away for a Prophecy

Synopsis

My stepsister, Lily Turner, had barely set foot back in the house before she told us she could see the comments. She was crying when she told our three brothers and Samuel, the boy I had grown up beside, that the comments were talking about me. What they said, she swore, was that I suffered from persecutory delusions, and that on the night of her eighteenth birthday, my sickness would crest and I would close my hands around her throat and kill her. The doctor said she had only suffered a shock and that the hallucinations had come out of it. My oldest brother, Julian Turner, signed the committal papers anyway. My second brother, Marcus Turner, made the calls to the psychiatric hospital. My third brother, Ethan Turner, and Samuel who carried me through its doors while I sobbed and begged anyone at all to help me. Julian said, "Just give us one year. Once Lily gets through her birthday safe, we'll come bring you home." Inside that place, they forced the pills down my throat. Every time I denied that anything was wrong with me, the answer was another round of shock therapy. What broke first was my ability to tell the truth from the answer that made the pain stop. By the end, the sound of Lily's name was enough to send me to my knees, confessing. Every time the day came to bring me home, Lily would cry and say the comments were still there. That was how one year stretched into three. After three years, Lily finally said the comments had disappeared. My three brothers and Samuel came for me only then. Julian's eyes were red when he said, "We knew you weren't sick. But Lily's life wasn't something we could gamble with." Marcus reached over and smoothed my hair. He said, "The pills only slowed you down. Stop taking them and it all comes back." Ethan's voice cracked as he tried to soothe me. He said, "You've always been the reasonable one. You carried a little hardship for your sister. You won't hold it against us, will you?" Samuel held his hand out to me. He said, "She's safe now. It's time we got married." But the single word home was all it took. I dropped straight to my knees and pulled my hands behind my back. I said, "I confess. I'm the one who wanted to kill Lily. Please, don't shock me again." All three of my brothers went red around the eyes in the same instant. Samuel's outstretched hand froze in the air, and the color drained clean out of his face.