The Jailbird's Wings

The Sleepless Night

Catherine was sitting on her couch, looking at the empty boxes all around. Aaron, her cousin, was moving in across the hall, and he had brought over her stuff from seven years ago so she could decide what to do with it. Now, after spending the morning hours of midnight till two am, Catherine was studying the face of her diary.

The book was as tall as her forearm, and as thick as one and a half fingers. The cover was worn, blue and smeared from faded sharpie. Her name, Catherine McCay, was written in sloppy handwriting. She always had been in a rush.

Now, as she traced the familiar handwriting, she found herself slow to open her diary. What would it contain, she wondered, of all those sleepless nights I worried?

Nevertheless, Catherine opened the cover and read over the very first page.

June 16th, 2002

It's my tenth birthday today! Michael was being naughty this morning, and he opened one of my presents. Because I saw what it was, my parents let me have it. Guess what it was? This diary!

I love writing, and I've always wanted an official diary. Maybe I'll fill up ten of them by the time I turn eleven! Imagine hiding ten diaries!

Catherine paused, amused. Where she had thought she would write a year of her life in ten diaries, she wrote seven years in one diary. Deciding that she didn't want to read about her younger years, she flipped towards the back of the book. With her eyes resting on a particularly full page with a bunch of smears and crossed out words, her mind froze.

March 15th, 2009

I'm drunk. I have been drunk for the past week. Only after school, though, because what would my girlfriends think if I wasn't so perfect after all? It's been one month since Mike was in the accident, and I can't get over it. I never got to say sorry, or say that I forgave him. That I did ,in fact, trust him.

Ryan just left. He visited saying that I forgot to take my math book home from study block, but it was clearly his own math book. My parents let him come up anyways. They know I'm drunk.

He took my bourbon. He took my poison and sat me down to talk. I didn't want to talk.

Ryan talked instead.

He said that he was sorry for my lost. I told him to fuck off. He said sorry for that too, because he wasn't going to fuck off anytime soon. Instead, he held me while I started crying.

I hate him.

He told me that it was okay to cry, and that he did it sometimes too. I asked why he cried, and he told me that he cried because he was sad for everyone. It was then I asked him about how he beat up Tom. He seemed startled.

Then, he told me. He told me all about how Tom controlled Lily and that she tried breaking up with him. Lily never talked to anyone about it because Tom would find out and hit her harder. Ryan also confessed that he once found Lily behind the local bar with no clothes on, and that she wouldn't tell him what happened. But she eventually did. Not that Ryan needed to hear it. I felt bad for Lily. She didn't deserve to be harassed by Tom.

Ryan then confessed that he had actually wanted to kill Tom for hurting Lily. I confessed that I wanted to kill myself for hurting Mike. He didn't know what to say to that, so he just held me a bit tighter.

I think it was nice of him to not say anything he didn't mean. But I still hate him.

My head hurts thinking about it, but I don't know why Ryan came. Why he would lie to my parents and just come up to comfort me. He's not good. I know this. But he acted good, and I was only reminded of my brother. I can't hate Ryan like I want to. He's too much like my brother.

I miss Mike.

Catherine was surprised to see another sentence scribbled out underneath it. She strained to read it, and even brought it closer to the light, looking at it from underneath the page. A gasp escaped her.

I miss Ryan.

Out of all her drunken nights, she especially didn't remember this one. Maybe she had drank extra hard after Ryan left, and completely washed out the memory. Or maybe she had refused to think of it. Maybe that was why she felt so connected to Ryan.

He had helped her at one point. Shouldn't she help him now?

But Catherine saw the flash of him killing four innocent people. The sound of the trigger clicking and the bullet firing. How could she face a murderer? Constricted, Catherine fell back on her couch and looked to the clock.

2:34.

Catherine reread the passage, trying to decipher some more of the crossed out words, but coming up short. When a wave of fatigue crashed over her, she cuddled up on her couch and watched as her collie came trotting up to her. When he laid his head on the cushion, Catherine relented and let him hop up on the couch with her.

Stroking the soft fur of her collie, she thought long and hard about what she was going to do. Of course, she already knew what she was going to do. But Catherine still liked to let herself doubt. It kept the other thoughts from storming in and giving her nightmares.

Catherine didn't sleep that night, instead she just read her diary over and over again. When her collie abandoned her because the turning of pages was irritating to him, Catherine didn't hold him back. She just kept reading, right up until the dawn of the next day.