When I close my eyes we're all back in the kitchen listening to music, laughing together at the simplest things, making dinner, setting the table, Teddy is busy playing, Mom and Dad kiss as they pass by each other just as they always had… we're in there all together, all living. When I close my eyes I picture them smiling at me, I can hear my Mom's laugh and smell my Dad's aftershave or Teddy's soap from his evening bath. I use to open my eyes as I played the cello, so I could experience the audience, the lights, and the entire entirety of performing. But now, I close my eyes. When I close my eyes they're with me. I can feel them in the audience, in the music. They are there, as extensions of my figures playing the cello, but then suddenly the song is over and they're gone. I'm forced to go back into reality… to my life without them.
Campus is so beautiful this time of year. It's an abundance of red and oranges as the leaves are deciding if they want to fall or cling onto their lives for just a few more days until the inevitable. Sometimes I can't believe I'm here. Julliard was everything I ever wanted, and here I am a full-blown student. I often think about what Mom said to me before the accident when I was deciding about going to Julliard and what would happen with Adam. Her words, "either way you win, either way you lose," have always stayed with me. However smart my lovely mother was, even she wouldn't have had an answer to Adam packing up everything and moving with me to New York so I could pursue the opportunity to study at Julliard. Of course Adam is still performing and planning a tour, but New York is, at least for right now, our home. I think about this as I take a seat in class, near the back in my usual spot and prepare for my lecture, all while simultaneously wishing we were playing our instruments today when I accidentally fall asleep. And it happens again.
It's always the same. I'm on the outside looking in, watching the scene like a bad movie on repeat every time I fall asleep. It was a perfect day, a snow day and everyone is home, and we have pancakes for breakfast. Afterwards, we all get in the car and are excitedly on our way to visit Willow and Henry. Classical music is playing on the radio, and I fall asleep. I wake up and the car is rolled on its side on the road bank, and blood paints the snow like one of Teddy's "abstract" finger paintings. Teddy... I can't find Teddy. I start to look for him but instead I find myself, still strapped into the car my eyes closed, blood running down my face like tribal paint. I'm watching from above, from the side, from below, I'm everywhere seeing everything and unable to look away. Suddenly I'm in the hospital, Gran and Gramps are here I can hear them talking to the doctors. Mom and Dad are dead, Teddy is dead too, I'm the only one who survived. Kim is here, she mentions Adam. Where is Adam? Does he know I'm here, does he know that my family is dead? I can't breath. The doctor says I have to choose to live. I can't think. I am the sole driver of my fate. I can't decide. Do I live or die?
I wake up screaming, with tears running down my face, and I open my eyes. Everyone in the class is staring at me. I can see two girls to my left snicker; the brunette mouths "what a freak" to the redhead sitting next to her.
"My God Mia, are you alright?" Professor Hanly asks.
"May I please be excused Mr. Hanly?" I croak. I don't wait for him to respond, I grab my things and run. I keep running until I reach my dorm, the only place Adam can't see me like this, and I silently thank Julliard for the mandatory dorm-fee, because Adam would surely be at the apartment right now. I see them when I close my eyes, I always do. For that exact reason I try to only close my eyes when I'm practicing or performing. I see them the way I want to remember them: happy, laughing, smiling, in a house full of life and love. But when I fall asleep I remember the darkest memory I've tried so hard to push out, to lock away.
I stumble into my room and lock the door behind me before turning around and sliding down to the floor with my back against the door, and sit with my head between my knees like my therapist encouraged me to do during my "episodes." Who knew that my cello wouldn't be a sufficient amount of therapy, and I'd need to work overtime 4 days a week at the local diner to get enough money for a therapist? Not to mention, hide the money from Adam for my appointments because I haven't told him. Adam thinks I'm fine. He thinks that I'm coping, and that I'm "better". But this isn't something I can sleep off, or take some purple-grape-flavored medicine and feel better the next day kind of thing. My therapist, Andy, says that I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and severe survivor's guilt. I keep thinking that I could have done something to change the outcome of the crash. I keep thinking that I'm the reason, that maybe if I would have stayed awake they would all still be alive. I can't sleep. If I do, I relive their death over-and-over again. I can't escape. Andy tells me I'm hurting and I'm coping. Andy is great; he's just doing his job. I've been seeing him for three months now, and he says I'm making progress and that this is all normal; but there's nothing normal about a girl who survived a car crash that killed the three people she loves most in the world.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't chosen to stay. What if I had decided death was the better option. Would I be with them? Would we be happy? Or would I have just disappeared… become nothing, just another number added to the growing statistic of car wrecks that occur in snowy conditions? I'm not suicidal by any means, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had chosen to slip away into the darkness.
I've never been a spiritual person, but I have to convince myself that they're still here. That they're still with me. Otherwise how can I continue to live a life that they would be proud of? I look around my dorm room and wipe away the tears pooling in my eyes. This is where I keep them. All the photographs, Dad's guitar and old leather jacket, Mom's favorite dress and her perfume, Teddy's blanket and favorite toy, all the memories we made – they reside here. I can't tell Adam I'm struggling; he can't know I'm not "better." I chose to stay; I chose to live. If this is my consequence for choosing a life without them I need to figure it out.
I reach for my phone, and call the oh-so-familiar number I've come accustomed to speed dialing. He answers on the third ring:
"Mia! I love hearing from you kid, so I hope this isn't another butt-dial!"
"No not another butt-dial, again I'm really sorry about that by-the-way, it-uhh… happened again..." I close my eyes and wait for his always-level response.
"I'm free now Mia, come on in, I'll cancel the rest of my afternoon," Andy says, "Oh and what kind of donut today?"
After seeing him twice a week for the last three months I feel like Andy knows me better than I know myself sometimes,
"I'll have a apple-fritter today, see you soon."
I pick my book bag up off the floor, and make a note in my planner to go apologize to Professor Hanly tomorrow. I then reach over and grab the family photo sitting on the bedside table and kiss the smiling family living inside, and head towards the campus bus station. Off to a good start this week, I think to myself, it's only Monday morning and I've already had an episode.