She knew she shouldn’t read it, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t handle coming home to a surprise or receiving a phone call during class. She waited until her sister had left the house. The younger girl didn’t want to be there with her older sister. It hurt the older girl, more than she realized, but she knew the younger one was going through a lot and tried to understand. It was hard.
She closed the bedroom door, sealing herself inside. She easily found the journal the younger one wrote in. She hadn’t bothered hiding it. It was just a regular looking journal, wide-ruled and only one subject. She picked it up and sat down on the bed. She opened it tenderly, scared of what she might find inside. Slowly, the girl read through the few pages that had been written on. She wasn’t surprised; she’d read similar entries from the girls' last journal. The older girl was utterly heartbroken. Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to spill over as she read the words that had been scratched onto the page before her.
“I feel like I’ve been alive too long, and I’m only 15 years almost 16 years old.”
“Why do I feel like drugs will help me? Drugs drugs drugs drugs.”
“I don’t want anyone to think it’s their fault. I’m sorry mom for being too much to handle. I’m sorry dad for causing you so much stress.”
The girl set the journal aside, brought her knees to her chest and hugged them. She sat there, attempting to hold her tears at bay. Breathing in then out, out then in. In then out, out then in. The atmosphere outside the room felt wrong. Everyone was having a good time. She could hear the laughter and the playful back-and-forth bickering. It was jarring, the atmospheric difference between the two rooms under the same roof. It was wrong. How was no one concerned about the younger girl? How could no one see her blatant pain? The pain that is etched on the girl’s face, in the girl’s actions and right there in writing. She didn’t know what she could do. The thought of the younger one doing something harmful to herself made her sick to her stomach. She couldn’t talk to the younger girl, she refused to look in her direction.
She figured she’d do what she does best in an attempt to feel a little less helpless. Lethargically, she pulled herself together and shuffled to the other side of the room to pick up her pencil and paper. She wrote and wrote and wrote. She tried to make the younger girl feel better. She was vulnerable. She flooded the page with encouragement. Once she was finished she ripped the page from the notebook, folded it many times over and scrawled the young girls' name on it. Tiptoeing to the other side of the room, the girl gently lifted the pillow on the younger girls’ bed, placed the note, and returned the pillow to its original spot. Everything looked as if it was normal. The girl stood there a minute listening still to the onslaught of amusement and joy that currently filled the bodies of everyone in the house, except her own.
She pulled back the covers and crawled into her bed, very aware of the emptiness of the other bed beside her. The girl hoped against all odds that the emptiness wouldn’t become permanent.
a.p.
this could potentially be triggering to some people and if it is i apologize.
