I can’t say a word. I just can’t. The bloody hands of my little brother, standing in my bedroom doorway, haunt my concentration. He murdered her, and everyone knows. His schizophrenia has not only killed Rynn, but also the brother I used to have. Don is sitting across from me, staring at the tears and hiccups I feed back to him after he repeats the same question, “Lennon, why did you let him go?”
August, 2003. A month before the murder.
Phoenix has been waking up a lot to talk to the “voices” that instruct him around. It’s been three years since he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and I feel it getting worse. It’s gotten to the point where he can’t even come out of the house without fainting or having an episode. 4 AM, I feel breath over my cheek in my pitch black room. Phoenix grabs me, and starts twisting my wrist, screaming as if someone was doing it to him instead. I sprung out of bed and he just kind of stood there, as if he were possessed, and mom finally escorted him back to bed. I’m scared. Really, really scared.
Ever since we moved to St. Paul I’ve been spending my time trying to work on making new friends and all those cliches that teenagers do in a new town. But, coming here known as the anxious freak I am, things are almost impossible. I watch Phoenix a lot, more than Lux does. Lux, my 11-year-old foster sister hardly speaks anyways. Phoenix and I have gotten into a weekly routine where we go to the coffee shop downtown together so I can just let him stare out the window and not be bothered. It’s nice. We went today, and he actually spoke. “Len, can you tell him to stop?”
virbinox 