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“Your sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia with paranoia. The medication was to help her.”
“Should you be sharing your patient’s diagnosis with other patients, doctor?”
“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. I’m simply reminding you. Based on your years of joint therapy, I’m not outside of my rights to discuss Maggie’s diagnosis.”
I bite my lip, trying desperately not to say the things on my tongue. I want to tell Dr. Tilney that I never really stopped seeing the creatures. I only said I did so I wouldn’t end up in a straitjacket. I want to tell her how much I hate her smug face and condescending attitude, but I can’t. Ever.
“She wasn’t crazy, and the meds didn’t help,” I say, defeated.
“I don’t use the word crazy. If she felt the medication she was prescribed was making things worse, she should’ve called me. There are always situations in which medication can cause worsening symptoms.”
She didn’t call because she would’ve been institutionalized. Both Maggie and I were threatened with that on numerous occasions by our parents. While I heeded the warnings and hid my paranoia, Maggie didn’t. She couldn’t, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they made good on those threats.
“Marina, your sister was sick.”
My shoulders sag at her words. If she was sick, so am I.
“You’re angry and you have plenty of reason to be. You were close to Maggie, and her decision hurt you.”
“You don’t know anything about her.” My teeth grind in anger.
All her questions and prying over the years have piled up, making it very difficult not to break her in half. I’ll never believe that Maggie chose to end her life and leave me. Something else had to have happened. Someone caused her to jump and I’ve made it my life’s mission to discover who it was.
She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms, clucking her tongue a few times before speaking. “I’m sorry, Marina.” For the first time today, there is a break in Dr. Tilney’s armor. “I cared about Maggie too. She’d been my patient for years, and her death weighs heavily on me as well.”
There is sadness in her eyes, and it forces me to admit that maybe I’m being unjustly hard on her. Her job is to help, and medicine is all she knows. For years I’ve been combative, and perhaps she’s as tired of these sessions as I am. Then again, every time I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt, she’s proven me wrong. She’s good at playing games, and I’ve always struggled with getting caught up in them. I have to do better. Maggie didn’t, and it cost her greatly in the end.
The world isn’t privy to the things that Maggie and I know. There is a whole other world out there. One where the shadows in the night are not just tricks of the mind, but actual monsters. They give it fancy terms like schizophrenia, but we’re not crazy. Everyone else is. It’s hard to face reality when it includes the stuff of nightmares.
I sigh, lowering my eyes in ignominy.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Inhale. Exhale. “It was my fault.”
Because I lied about seeing the monsters too.
“I could’ve stopped her.” The words escape without permission.
“Did you know she was considering suicide?”
My body jerks back at the question. It’s ludicrous. I loved my sister and I would’ve done anything to stop her, had I thought she was contemplating that.
“No. Of course not.” I shake my head vehemently.
“Then how could it be your fault?”
I didn’t know, but I should’ve. She was my best friend, my sister. The signs were all there, yet I did nothing.
“It just is.”
“It isn’t. She didn’t ask for your help. You couldn’t help her, Marina,” Dr. Tilney states.
She did, though. She begged me to admit to our parents that the monsters were real. I didn’t. I kept quiet.
“She told me she was scared. I should’ve done something.”
Her eyes soften, and she changes tactics once again.
