Bird

BIRD

After midnight, it’s finally quiet here. But there’s no way I’ll fall asleep, not without knowing. For the whole hour drive home from the airport this afternoon, I kept telling myself I didn’t care. I wouldn’t care.

As I unpacked my bags and started my laundry, I wanted that clean break. As I helped Mom make dinner and feed the twins, I accepted it. And as I sat down at the kitchen table, everyone talking over each other, being asked not once but three times by both Mom and Daniel how the summer workshop went—never once being given a chance to answer—I reminded myself that we were being logical. Mature, even.

Except now it’s after midnight and it’s too quiet and all I can think about is how he said he’d write to me when he made it home, even though I told him not to. How she said she wouldn’t write because it would be too hard.

Every creak of the stairs is amplified as I try, silently as possible, to make my way downstairs to the communal family computer. The dinging screeching static of the dial-up screams through the quiet. I hold my breath, hoping the stupid modem hasn’t woken anyone.

Dialing… I sit in silence, the tiny yellow figure suspended, waiting to run across the screen. I look over my shoulder, try to listen. I hear Daniel snoring from my mom’s room—their room. A mattress spring creaking in one of the kids’ bedrooms.

Connecting… I watch the yellow guy hop to the next box. And, finally, Connected.

I’m in.

Then I fumble to turn down the speakers as they blare out, “You’ve got mail.”

“Shhh,” I hiss.

Even though I haven’t checked my email in weeks, I only have three messages in my inbox. None from him. Or her. I try to ignore the sinking feeling this churns up in my stomach. There’s one from my older brother, Charlie; one from my best friend, Kayla; and one from the writing workshop with the subject line: Thank you, staff and students, for a wonderful summer of words and… I open the email, but it’s too long to read right now. I don’t have the attention span—or the heart span—not when I know that across the country, in a different time zone, they both received this same email. I wonder if they thought the same thing I’m thinking: that the summer was filled with a lot more than just words.

Charlie’s email is short. No subject.

Hey Bird, Sorry I couldn’t wait to leave till you got back. Had some stuff I needed to take care of on campus but will call with an update on our “research project” soon. Hope you had a fun time at the writing thing.

X Charlie

Kayla’s subject line is just a bunch of exclamation points. I’m not sure I have the heart span for this one either, but I open it anyway.

Birdie—

hi and MAJOR DEVELOPMENT! I THINK DADE IS MY LITERAL SOULMATE I’M DYING. U GET HOME 2MORROW RIGHT?? WILL TELL U EVERYTHING THEN!!!!! Btw so sorry i missed your calls. the rents are being very strict but i got ur letters and the poem and ohmygawd WHAT happened there?!?! Didn’t have a chance to write back but want to hear ALL the juicy details for sure. Gotta go but c u soon! Luv u, kayla

P.S. yes of course i will drive you to your open mic thing

I want to reply in all caps that the details aren’t juicy. They’re painful and scary and confusing… and, okay, maybe a little bit epically life-altering and amazing. Followed by five exclamation points. I want to respond that she likely hadn’t found her literal soulmate, especially because she has had ten literal soulmates since junior year and has barely even exchanged a single word with any of them. But I don’t.

I write back quickly: No worries! We’ll catch up tomorrow. Well, today!

I’m about to sign off when a new message pops up. It’s from him. I really wish it was her, though, because there are things I still need to tell her, even if I never figured out how to say them.

I hate the way my heart stutters as I read his subject line: this is why i never liked haiku / 17 syllables isn’t enough to say what i mean. I open it right away.

miss you already

little bird told me not to

sorry, can’t help it

I start to write back because of that little flutter in my chest telling me, I matter to someone—do anything, anything, to keep this feeling. Turns out I’m happy he wrote even though I told him not to. For a few seconds, anyway. Rereading, I’m not sure I truly understood the difference between alone and lonely until right now. But I’ve learned a lot about words this summer. And I’ve grown addicted to the feeling of not being lonely. I miss it already.

I shut down the computer. Creep back upstairs. In bed again, I pull the covers up to my chin and stare at the ceiling. As my eyes adjust to the dark, the quiet I usually crave echoes all around me, only amplifying the deep empty spaces I feel inside, the ones I’ve been trying so hard to pretend aren’t there.