I don’t think Ted really liked me, especially in the beginning. Ted is a polite, peaceable boy. I am loud. I get very angry. Rage flows through me in waves. But it is not my job to make him like me. It is my job to protect him from hurt. I took some of his pain—I came forward so that we shared it. I couldn’t make it go away altogether. Sometimes the pain wasn’t even the worst part—it was the sounds. The little noise as the flesh parted. He really didn’t like that.

That night, as the tip of the scalpel met his back, I came forward as usual to share it with him.

“Stay still, please, Theodore,” said Mommy. “You are making this very difficult.” Then she continued her dictation, pressing the red piano-key button down with a click. “The third incision,” she said, “is superficial, outer dermis only.” Her hand followed the words.

Ted knew that Mommy was right—this only got worse if he fought it. He knew if he stepped out of line Mommy would put him in the old chest freezer, in the disinfecting bath of vinegar and hot water. So Ted tried to let it happen. He tried to be a good boy. But the pain and the noises got so bad, Ted was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop himself making a sound—even though he knew what happened if he did that.

We were lying alongside one another, and I felt all his thoughts and fears. It was hard to take at the same time as everything that was happening to the body.

And Ted did it, he let out a little high ahh, barely a sound at all, really. But it fell into the quiet like a pebble into a pond. We both held our breath. Mommy stopped what she was doing. “You’re making this very hard for both of us,” she said, and went to make the vinegar bath ready.

As she lowered us into the freezer, Ted started crying properly. He wasn’t as strong as me.

The dark closed over. Our skin was a gulf of flame. Ted was breathing too fast and coughing. I knew I had to protect him. He couldn’t take much more of this.

“Get out of here, Ted,” I said. “Go.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Do what I do. Leave. Stop being.”

“I can’t!” His voice was really high.

I pushed him. “Go away, you big baby.”

“I can’t!”

“Well, maybe Mommy will go too far this time,” I said, “and we will die.” This neat solution had never occurred to me before. “Ted! I just had an idea!”

But Teddy was gone. He had found his door.

TED