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Chapter 19
"I said, what are you doing here?" my father repeats, shouting it louder this time.
He steps into the room, his eyes boring into mine, demanding answers. My gaze goes to my mother beside him, hand on her chest, as if seeing me in Callie's room is breaking her heart in some way. Then both of their eyes land squarely on Elijah. I can hear the venom in my father's words before he even speaks. It's in the way his nostrils flare as his top lip curls in disgust at seeing Elijah. In the way his hand balls into a fist at his side.
"How dare you bring this filth into my daughter's room?" he hisses.
"You have no right, or reason, to speak about him that way," I snap.
"Oh, she speaks.” He scoffs. “I thought your tongue had stopped working like your mind clearly has. I will ask one more time, what are you doing in here?"
"It's my sister's room. I can come in here if I want."
He shakes his head. "No. Because you see, you lost any rights in this house the moment you decided to scurry away like some thief in the night, worrying your poor mother here half to death about where you were."
"Yes, your concern was so clear from the way you made sure to cut off the only way you could communicate with me until you wanted to demand I come to a therapy session."
"Why didn't you come?" my mother asks.
She still hasn't looked at me. Her eyes dart around the room, probably trying to find something out of place for her to fix.
"What was the point? I think you two have made perfectly clear the way that you feel about me. And I am sure I've made clear how I feel about you, about being in this house. There's nowhere else for the conversation to go. You want me to live one way and I refuse to. You want to watch my every step, count my every breath, to make sure I follow the path you lay out for me. But I'm done with letting you."
Her eyes finally come to me then. She licks her lips in nervousness, obviously preparing to say something I know I won't like.
"We've been talking with the therapist. About your erratic behavior, how...unfocused and unbalanced you seem lately. You cannot continue on this way. It isn’t healthy.”
“What way?” I puzzle. “I’m living my life. I’m trying to move on. What is so wrong with that? Because I’m not convinced I should forever be in mourning? Because I don’t want to continue living in this house that has all but become a shrine? Look at this room, the way everything has not moved an inch from its place since Callie died. It’s like you just want me to be one more thing that doesn’t change in the least, doesn’t remind you that your reality is not reality anymore.”
“What would you have us do?” my father asks, voice getting angrier with each word. “Throw everything away? Act like Callie never existed at all? Some of us are not so quick to forget about her as you are.”
“Forget?” I breathe, the pain of his words hitting me right in the heart.
How could I ever forget her, ever not remember all the time she and I spent together? But that’s the difference between me and my parents. They think they can hold onto her by keeping her material things around. I know she cared little for anything in this room. Callie was my sister, and if every single thing in this room burned down tomorrow, I would still have so much of her.
My mother puts her hand on my father’s shoulder, looking like she’s seeking to calm him, then she looks back at me. “The therapist, your father, and I, well we reached a solution that will help everyone. We found a treatment center you can go to."
My eyes widen, and my heart begins thundering in my chest so hard, I fear it may explode. They can't be serious right now.
"It will only be for a few months. And by the time you get out, we'll have moved, and we can all start over somewhere new. Think about how nice that will be. You can relax there, get your mind to a better place, and then start fresh."
The silence that fills the room after she speaks is filled with tension, thick tension. My mother looks at me with hope in her eyes, my father with expectation in his. I turn around and look at Elijah and find sadness in his gaze. It's like the dinner all over again. The anger slowly rising until it has nowhere else to go but out. I knew how Elijah felt then, watching videos, hearing them recount a version of Ben that didn't really exist. But I know the feeling better now. Because here we are, in the room of my sister who they let die before their eyes. And they have the nerve to suggest a treatment center for me. For me.
I turn back around. "This treatment center, it has therapy? Counseling? It can really help make things better?"
My mother steps forward, in front of my father, a smile beginning to creep onto her face. "Oh yes, yes. Everything you could need. It even has yoga, gardening, lots of things to let you really just be at peace. You'll love it."
"You know who would have really loved it?" I look at my father now, meeting his glare because he already knows where this is going. "Callie would have loved that. Callie would have loved to know that her parents cared enough to send her somewhere like that. To get her treatment for all the darkness inside of her. To get her help in the battles she was fighting every second of every day."
"Jolie, please." My mother pleads, making my eyes snap back to her.
"But you never sent her there. You never sent her anywhere. And when we tried to get her help on our own, you viciously ripped it away from her. How dare you have the nerve to stand here and act like you give a shit now? How dare you stand in this room, feet from where I held my cold, dead sister, and suggest that to me?"
"Now, I've told you we will not hear any more of this," my father shouts.
"You will listen!" I scream, chest heaving now. "You will listen to me because you didn't listen to Callie. You silenced her. You shut her down at every turn. And for what? Image, control, because you wanted to pretend we were the perfect daughters you imagined us to be? Why? Tell me why?"
"We didn't know," my mother sobs, hands coming up to cover her face.
