Birdie
Day Thirty-Seven
My shrink is a balding forty year old man that sweats profusely and smiles with too much teeth, and he does smile at me, a lot and it unnerves me. Like he is trying to make me comfortable but nothing about this is comfortable because she is gone and I am all alone, no none of this is comfortable. He is staring at me with a hint of wonder to his eyes and I realise I need to answer his question, we are talking about Ali. He asked me last week in our last session to think about her and tell him what I thought, tell him about her, and it should be an easy task I guess it’s just not. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done since she left because I don’t talk and he is waiting with something I can’t quite name in his eyes waiting for me to tell him everything, it’s also hard because I don’t want to talk about her.
“I gather your still not talking” He says this with a hint of a smile and I hate that, I hate his smile. I hate this little man and his stupid psychotherapy, I hate it all. I nod my head and he clears his throat, “Is there a particular reason for your silence Abigail?” I want to tell him yes, because when Ali needed me I had been silent and this seems the fairest form of punishment but I don’t, half because I don’t talk and half because I don’t trust him to understand. I wish I were in the waiting room listening to the Christian rock music they play nonstop with my mum but I am here and I feel, I don’t even know, it seems worse than sadness.
He hands me a piece of paper and a pen, I know I should have brought my whiteboard but I didn’t want to answer any of his questions so I had purposefully left it in the car hoping he would get the picture that I refuse to talk, apparently he has found another solution. “Tell me about her,” I want to ask what he knows but my hand is already hovering over the paper ready to write.
She was… something. More than something, completely and utterly more than something if that makes any sort of sense. She was magic and every wonderful thing, she was my best friend and that made me feel lucky, to matter to her at all.
He pauses to read my words and I suddenly feel uncomfortable like I have told him something I shouldn’t have, like I have broken my vow of silence by writing what I wrote. But I haven’t I reassure myself desperate to quiet the strange beating of my heart, I am suddenly terrified that not only I will be judged but she will be too and that terrifies me.
“What do you think she would think of your silence”
She would find it hilarious, think I am making some grand statement and pissing off our parents in the same breath and she would love that.
“If rolls were reversed do you think she would give up words for you?” No because she would never do what I did to her, she would never betray my trust and she would never hurt me like I hurt her.
No, she loved words far too much to part with them.
“But you don’t? Love words?”
Not like her, I don’t think I will ever love like she did.
And it’s the truth and it hurts, I don’t think I will ever love like she did because she loved with her whole heart and I barely have half a heart. I want to cry and just tell my shrink everything that happened between us the last week of her life, how I let her down but I can’t. I can’t even think of it because I killed her, I am the reason she is dead and that fact is not lost on me. If I had done it all different she would still be here laughing at my stupid jokes and I wouldn’t be here writing about my dead sister.
I feel bitter and for a second like I am going to vomit, because she is gone and it’s all my fault. “Why do you say that?”
When she loved she really loved, with every part of herself and the only person I’ve loved that way left me, what’s the point of getting attached if everyone leaves?
“That’s a very callous way of thinking Abigail” And I hate how he says my name with a hint of respect and disdain, like I am something more than I present but I am not. I am just Ali’s sister. “If Ali” I hate how he calls her that, it’s my parents fault and mine as well I guess, we all refer to her as Ali and as such he feels entitled to calling her it to but it feels wrong, he didn’t even know her. “were still here would she want you to feel that way?”
No, but that doesn’t matter, if she were here it would all be different, but she is gone and I am just trying to survive.
“If she were here what would you tell her?”
I’m sorry
“Why?” But I don’t want to talk anymore, not to him about her even if it is just writing. But it feels like more, more than writing and these words are all I have and I don’t want to waste them on a man that will never understand my sister and why she did what she did. So I scrunch up the piece of paper he has given me and throw it in the direction of the bin, we both watch it sail through the air and land a few feet shy of the bin.
I want to tell him that he will never understand me because I will never tell him enough to but I don’t my paper is gone and my hand itches to write. To write the words Ali confided in me before she killed herself, before I killed her. And I did… I killed her,
I killed my sister.
“I gather your still not talking” He says this with a hint of a smile and I hate that, I hate his smile. I hate this little man and his stupid psychotherapy, I hate it all. I nod my head and he clears his throat, “Is there a particular reason for your silence Abigail?” I want to tell him yes, because when Ali needed me I had been silent and this seems the fairest form of punishment but I don’t, half because I don’t talk and half because I don’t trust him to understand. I wish I were in the waiting room listening to the Christian rock music they play nonstop with my mum but I am here and I feel, I don’t even know, it seems worse than sadness.
He hands me a piece of paper and a pen, I know I should have brought my whiteboard but I didn’t want to answer any of his questions so I had purposefully left it in the car hoping he would get the picture that I refuse to talk, apparently he has found another solution. “Tell me about her,” I want to ask what he knows but my hand is already hovering over the paper ready to write.
She was… something. More than something, completely and utterly more than something if that makes any sort of sense. She was magic and every wonderful thing, she was my best friend and that made me feel lucky, to matter to her at all.
He pauses to read my words and I suddenly feel uncomfortable like I have told him something I shouldn’t have, like I have broken my vow of silence by writing what I wrote. But I haven’t I reassure myself desperate to quiet the strange beating of my heart, I am suddenly terrified that not only I will be judged but she will be too and that terrifies me.
“What do you think she would think of your silence”
She would find it hilarious, think I am making some grand statement and pissing off our parents in the same breath and she would love that.
“If rolls were reversed do you think she would give up words for you?” No because she would never do what I did to her, she would never betray my trust and she would never hurt me like I hurt her.
No, she loved words far too much to part with them.
“But you don’t? Love words?”
Not like her, I don’t think I will ever love like she did.
And it’s the truth and it hurts, I don’t think I will ever love like she did because she loved with her whole heart and I barely have half a heart. I want to cry and just tell my shrink everything that happened between us the last week of her life, how I let her down but I can’t. I can’t even think of it because I killed her, I am the reason she is dead and that fact is not lost on me. If I had done it all different she would still be here laughing at my stupid jokes and I wouldn’t be here writing about my dead sister.
I feel bitter and for a second like I am going to vomit, because she is gone and it’s all my fault. “Why do you say that?”
When she loved she really loved, with every part of herself and the only person I’ve loved that way left me, what’s the point of getting attached if everyone leaves?
“That’s a very callous way of thinking Abigail” And I hate how he says my name with a hint of respect and disdain, like I am something more than I present but I am not. I am just Ali’s sister. “If Ali” I hate how he calls her that, it’s my parents fault and mine as well I guess, we all refer to her as Ali and as such he feels entitled to calling her it to but it feels wrong, he didn’t even know her. “were still here would she want you to feel that way?”
No, but that doesn’t matter, if she were here it would all be different, but she is gone and I am just trying to survive.
“If she were here what would you tell her?”
I’m sorry
“Why?” But I don’t want to talk anymore, not to him about her even if it is just writing. But it feels like more, more than writing and these words are all I have and I don’t want to waste them on a man that will never understand my sister and why she did what she did. So I scrunch up the piece of paper he has given me and throw it in the direction of the bin, we both watch it sail through the air and land a few feet shy of the bin.
I want to tell him that he will never understand me because I will never tell him enough to but I don’t my paper is gone and my hand itches to write. To write the words Ali confided in me before she killed herself, before I killed her. And I did… I killed her,
I killed my sister.