The Secrets of a Wilting Flower

Chapter Twenty Five

I push Meghan off of me early in the morning. I know what I need to do, and my feet lead me there without even having to think. I walk slowly down the hallway, my fingertips brushing the wall. I stop when I get to the closed door. The door that hasn't been opened for months. I stand there for what feels like hours. I need to go in, but I can't. I'm frozen, staring at the handle.

Finally, I reach out to grab the knob. I twist it and open the door as if in slow motion before taking a step. It's as if nothing has changed, other than the bed being completely bare. There are clothes, bobby pins, and magazines all over the floor. There are papers strewn over her dresser, sticky from spilled lip gloss. I sit on her bed and look around. Then I stand up again as scan the area. Something on Alicia's mirror catches my eye.

"Oh my gosh." It's the picture. With trembling hands, I reach up and grab it off of the mirror where it is taped. Alicia's sparkling blue eyes and my mud brown ones both stare back out at me. I can almost feel my arm around her back and hers around mind. I turn it over to remove the tape. Alicia's curvy scrawl covers the entire back.

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Dear Callie,

I'm so sick of hurting people. And you guys don't even get it. You think I want to be a bitch? News flash, I don't. I've told you a million times that I can't help it. I've told you that I hate myself as much as you hate me. I'm so tired of not being able to control my emotions and having to be sorry for something I can't control. I told you so many times. But you never listened, did you?

Maybe now you will.

Here's to my now perfect family,

Alicia

Maybe now you will. What is that supposed to mean? I never listened? What was I supposed to do, sit down and let her whining and crying and complaining fill my ears like a radio? I clench my fists and teeth, feeling my face get hot. But then I take a deep breath. I'm no better than she was. I would even go as far as to say that I am worse. At least she didn't kill me. Being mad at her isn't going to give me any satisfaction, just more guilt.

A tear rolls down my cheek as I read the note again. Then I set it down as carefully as I can as I whisper, "I love you Alicia."

And this time, it is the truth.

________________

I stare at the once-missing picture for a long time. Then I have an idea. "Mom," I run to her room. "Mom!"

She opens her door in a panic. "What?" Then she see that it is me. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Where is that picture of Alicia and you guys when she was born?"

"It's sitting on my dresser? Why? Callie, please just get out of here."

I run into her room and grab the picture, pulling it out of it's frame. Sure enough, Alicia's curvy scrawl is on the back. As soon as I see it, I hand it to here. It's not for me to read. "Here."

She takes it out of my hand. "What is this?" But then she reads the first line. "Oh my god." She backs into her bed and slides to the ground. "Oh my god." She reads the note holding it inches from her face, as if she's afraid that she will miss something. When she is done, she looks up at me. "How did you-"

"I have one, too."

She looks down, as if that takes away some of the specialty of hers. She continues to read it over, now steadily crying. I decide to leave her alone, and step out to let her grieve by herself.

I lean against the hallway wall and read the note again. Maybe now you'll listen. What did she mean? But then I think about all the times that instead of fighting I just walked away. I think about the last time I walked away.

I sit down and huddle against the wall as the terrifying realization hits me. I didn't show her any hate, but I didn't show compassion or love, either. Maybe that's where I went wrong. Maybe if I'd fought her, showed her that I cared. Maybe even doing all the wrong things with passion is better than not doing anything at all. How many times had I just turned the other cheek silently, instead of saying something. Don't they say you can't stop a bully unless someone speaks up? Why hadn't I sat down and just talked to her, shown her that I had feelings and that I wasn't just an unresponsive robot programmed to turn away at the slightest bit of controversy? Was it possible that my ignorance of her hurt more than any words or physical pain could have? 

But why would she get so angry over something like that? Why didn't she just tell me that she wanted to talk? I would have sat down and had a discussion with her if she had asked me to. Then something strikes my memory: overhearing Doctor Collins that day and how she said that there must have been signs. Suddenly I remember the nights I would hear sobbing through the wall, or days when Alicia would claim to be too sick for school but looked perfectly fine. There are lots of words I would use to describe my sister. Cruel, hateful, lethal, beautiful, charming, deceiving, crazy.

But it never even crossed my mind that she might be depressed.

Even the suicide threats I just took to be ways to get attention, or make us feel bad for her. I never thought that maybe she really didn't have a choice in not being happy. I was too busy thinking about how I wasn't.

Maybe now you'll listen. Maybe now you'll notice the signs. Maybe now you'll see that I'm slowly fading and that I need help. Maybe now you'll listen to my silent cries for help.

I slam my head against the wall.No one thinks about the consequences, do they? I think that's how this all started. Eve was too busy thinking about how good that apple would taste to think that it would cause an eternity of trouble. I was too busy trying not to be the bad guy to think that maybe I wasn't the good guy, either. Maybe if for once someone looked at the consequences of our actions things would be different. Maybe parents wouldn't separate, dads wouldn't drink, and maybe sisters wouldn't die.

I hear my mom's very audible cries through the door. I step back into her room and throw my arms around her. She is in hysterics. Finally, she has broken down and even though it's unsettling it's also strangely soothing to see that my mom is human. She shakes in my arms and sobs into my shoulder. "I just wanted her to listen. It was like she did the wrong thing just because it was wrong. I just repeated and repeated but it was like talking to a brick wall. How can she be blaming me? How can this be my fault? I just wanted her to listen."

Even though I'm breaking myself, I somehow manage to hold her up. Maybe I'm not quite as bad as I thought. Maybe it just hasn't hit me yet. "That's all she wanted, too, Mom. She just wanted us to listen."

I don't know if it's realization or if she's just calming down, but suddenly my mom's body goes still. Then she pushes herself off of me, wipes her face with the sleeve of her shirt, and stands up. "This is all your fault." And then she walks out of the room with her back straight, as if it never happened.

I look over at the my mom's picture, but don't read it. It's her own hell that she has to deal with. I've already gotten mine.

Eternal guilt.

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