Birdie lays against my chest, dark curls spill everywhere, tickling my face. Her hand is splayed out across my shirt, her body warm pressed against mine.
"I'm taking a break from training." I tell her, staring at the darkness of our room.
She doesn't change, staying relaxed beside me as she quietly says "probably not a bad idea."
"And my dad and I are going to go to the gym nearby four days a week."
We lay there, both of us still as we wait for sleep, my words out in the open because the more people I tell my schedule to, the better I'll be at sticking to it. Obedience and all. I let my hand rub up and down Birdie's back, finding the warmth of her skin as her shirt rides up slightly.
I'm so thankful for Birdie. Her calm, her understanding, her patience with me. My flashbacks have been worse, my nightmares consistent as the days led up to submitting my statement and the more vivid they got the less I could handle anyone being close. She didn't skip a beat when I got into bed fully clothed one night because the thought of someone's skin against mine had my stomach rolling and fear creeping up my neck. She threw on a tshirt and a pair of shorts and climbed in bed beside me, leaving me space. I laid there, listening to my heart panic in my chest trying to figure out the right way to explain myself. It wasn't her, it's never her. It's me.
She hadn't let me apologize even though I tried.
"I missed this." She mumbles, snuggling into my side a little closer.
I'm still not ready to take my shirt off yet but I can find comfort in her body against mine again. "Me too."
My fingertips graze the smooth skin over her back, honey and lemon filling my senses as I breathe her in.
"How was your session?" I ask.
I feel her smile more than see it but I can tell it doesn't come easy. "It was good."
Birdie goes to therapy too, not as often as I do, but I know with Drew's anniversary coming soon, old grief has become more pronounced for her. I feel it too.
"We talked about the event coming up. And whether or not I want to meet Jack." She tells me and I try to keep my hand gently stroking her back as relaxed as I can.
A small attempt at trying to be her calm.
"It's just so hard to think he's had a kid all this time. That a piece of him is still alive." Her voice has gone softer, more painful. I hold her closer. "What's he like?"
After Vida and I left Julia's, I told Birdie that I met Jack. But I didn't give her details and she didn't ask. Drew's loss is something that we share but we both grieve him in different ways, for different reasons. And because of that he's become something that we both test the waters on. He was my brother and my love for him is pure. I don't blame Drew for leaving, I had once been desperate enough to put serious contemplation into how to end my life. But somewhere inside me, I had always kept this small, almost invisible flicker of hope. Drew's had long ran out.
But Birdie, there's a part of her that blames him. That can't forgive him. That doesn't understand it. I know she loves him. But there's a hurt that lives beside that love. An anger.
"He has his smile and his eyes." I tell her quietly, easing the information out into the air, giving her time to digest it and decide if she wants more.
"He looks like him?" She shifts in my arms, her chin resting on my peck as she looks up at me in the dark.
The moonlight that slips through the fibers of our curtains is just enough for me to see the slender slope of her nose and the soft angles of her cheeks. Her hazel eyes dark as they reflect the small amount of light, giving away the pain that she feels with Drew's absence.
I nod my head, "he showed me a picture of his mom but he might as well be a carbon copy of Drew, just darker."
"Did he sound like him?"
Drew's voice has long been distorted in my memories. I want to say I can still hear him, that I'd know the sound of his laugh, or the tone of his voice but without an old video, I can no longer conjure up the sound on my own.
"He has a lot of the same mannerisms, like that smirk." I smile a little, images of Drew over the years, a mischievous smirk on his face come to mind. I'm thankful that the images still feel crisp, that the details haven't slipped away.
"That damn smirk." She says softly, somewhere between sadness and fondness.
A laugh rumbles in my chest, a memory of highschool rushing to my mind. A long forgotten one that was clouded with panic but as I lay in bed with Birdie on my chest and reminisce on Drew it becomes more vivid. Birdie by my side as we walked into school. I remember being terrified, an article in the local paper had dug up my past and plastered it all over the front page. A spot designated to highlighting the local high school athletes. Or in my case paint them a troubled kid.
A girl came up, confronting us, too forward and direct as she singled me out. She was just about to touch me when Drew seemed to materialize out of thin air, catching her hand and deflecting her. She slapped him, an action that had almost dropped me to my knees but all Drew did was laugh. He held his fist out, patiently waiting as I tried to beat the panic that was rising inside me and when I snuck a glance up, he was wearing that smirk. Confident and assured, amused but mostly unaffected by things. That smirk had gotten me through scenarios where panic had tried to claim me instead.
"He seems like a good kid." I tell her.
She lets out a heavy sigh, resting her head down again.
"I told Julia I want to meet him."
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Double update because I'm officially done with this story on my mind. 43 chapters in total! 🥳
