Why Can't You See Part III

I bombarded Tanisha with questions the week after I got the pills. Our sessions had been cut from three weekly sessions to one, but they were slightly longer.
I had to take one pill in front of Tanisha to be sure I wouldn’t have an adverse reaction or anything, but after twenty minutes of casual chatter revealed no change, she gave me permission to take them.
“How many pills will I have to take for her to be gone permanently?” I asked her after I did it. She looked up at me (literally, up. She was upside down on the armchair, her head at the bottom and her feet hanging over the headrest).
“I can’t honestly say, but a few more should do it.”
I stared at a picture of a young Indian girl she had hanging on her wall and wondered if I was the only person in the world to have dreamt up a sister so strongly that my brain made me believe it. Maybe the Indian girl had her own ‘twin sister’ and just wouldn’t admit it.
“I wouldn’t worry about it though,” Tanisha advised, breaking into my thoughts, so I didn’t.1

Miranda was waiting for me out in the lobby. I flashed an everything’s-okay smile, partially for her, partially for my parents, who didn’t (and wouldn’t) know I had decided to keep her. She on the other hand, was my twin sister, and I watched her dance around the waiting area and jump up onto a side table. It was all I could do not to laugh.
“So, how’d it go?” Dad asked me.
“Fine,” I replied. “Tanisha had me take a pill to be sure I wasn’t allergic, and I wasn’t,” I told them. Mother pulled me into a hug and I felt a shiver going through her body.
“So, now everything’s going to go back to normal,” she said hopefully.
“Yes, yes it will,” I echoed, gazing affectionately toward my sister. 2

At least, I thought things were going to go back to normal. Unfortunately, I’m awful at predicting the future. And that’s how I got here, cowering in my little corner. But I think before I go on, I should elaborate a little…3

Word spread, as it does in high schools, of my sister. I never told her, but I didn’t have to. She followed me one day, one day when things became their worst.
You see, I never talked to anyone in school. Maybe it would have been different if I had, but I didn’t. At first everyone thought I was really shy, then they thought I was just stuck up. After learning about Miranda, they had other ideas about what was ‘wrong’ with me.
I saw Miranda in the hallway by my locker, waiting for me.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered in a panic, looking into my locker as I spoke to her.
“I-I just wanted to see you,” she answered, taken back by my tone.
“Please go home, Miranda, school‘s almost out and I should be there soon,” I whispered and shut my locker.
“Why are you being so quiet?” she asked, a sudden change in her voice wrenching me back to my locker to pretend I had forgotten something.
“I just don’t want anyone to hear me talking to you. They’ll think I’m talking to myself, Miranda. You know that.”
I turned to look at her for a second and was startled to see tears in her eyes. Angry tears.
As she stomped off, I realized that that had all come out wrong.
“Miranda,” I called gently, scrambling to my feet. She was already halfway down the hall.
“Miranda!” I called out before I could stop myself. I could hear snickers all down the hall.
“She is so crazy,” I heard a nearby girl whisper. Her friend agreed and they both laughed loudly.
“Excuse me, what was that?” I asked loudly, not looking in her direction.
“Nothing. If you and your sister want to come to my house and have lunch sometime, then feel free. We have an imaginary chair and my mom is really good at not cooking,” she announced and started walking down the hallway.
I turned on her furiously, thrusting her up against my locker. A look of shock crossed her face. I slapped it off.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Could you repeat that?” I growled at her. She shook her head quickly and stammered that she didn’t mean anything by it. I let go of her shirt.
“Good. Don’t you ever call me that again,” I snarled at her, then ran out of the building after my sister.
I didn’t find her until I got home. She was waiting for me in our room.
“Miranda, I didn’t mean-” I started as soon as I saw her.
“Didn’t mean what?” she asked me in a tone I hadn’t thought her capable of, an angry tone dripping revulsion. “Didn’t mean to ignore me in public as if I don’t exist?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the red and blue flowers on our bedspread.
“That’s not what I was-” I tried, but was once again cut short.
“That’s exactly what you were doing!” she yelled. “Don’t even try to deny it!”
I didn’t reply. I had never seen my sister angry in our entire lives. We had never fought, and I didn’t know she was capable of getting so viciously angry.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, after a time. She lifted her head and finally looked at me. I wished she hadn’t of.
The intensity in her eyes scared me. I actually staggered back a couple of steps and tried to think of something more to say. She didn’t move, just kept her lethal stare on me. I turned and left after a couple of minutes, closing the door behind me. I was almost to the front door when I heard my bedroom door open.
“Martha,” I heard my sister call. “Wait.”
I walked back to the front room. She was sitting on the couch, and she motioned for me to join her.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said. “Something important.” Her tone wasn’t dangerous anymore, but it wasn’t entirely back to normal either. I didn’t speak, but just let her go on.
“I can’t keep doing this,” she told me. I shot her a confused look.
“You don’t understand,” she said gently, looking away. “That really doesn’t surprise me.”
“What are you talking about Miranda? Do you need something?” I asked suggestively. She looked up at me, a sad little half smile crossing her face and dimming her eyes.
“Yes, actually, I do.”
“What‘s wrong?” I asked her.
“I can’t keep doing this,” she repeated. “I have to exist. I can’t be pretend anymore. Do you understand?” she asked. I nodded.
“But is there any way?” I asked her.
“Yes, actually. And it involves you.”
“What do you need me to do?” I asked. I was willingly to do anything to help my sister. Well, until I heard what it was.
“Die,” she replied. My jaw dropped slightly. She couldn’t be serious. She couldn’t be…….serious?
“What?!” I asked in a horrified tone. I jumped up from the couch but she pulled me back down.
“Martha, you’ve had your turn. Now I want to exist!” she demanded, and once more turned her gaze on me. It wasn’t angry this time; it was hungry.
A cold feeling spread through me as I realized she wasn’t kidding.
“I won’t hurt you,” she assured me. “You won’t feel any pain, I promise. That is, unless you resist.” I stared in fright at the stranger that had once been my sister. Then I got up again, shaking her off when she grabbed my arm, and ran.
She chased me, of course. She chased me out into the front yard and all down the street. She had chased me clear out to the overpass when she finally caught me and forced me up on the edge of it.
I stared down at the highway some twenty or thirty feet below me, every inch of me trembling as I rambled and stammered words that didn‘t exist. Today, it was packed with traffic, all going the speed limit or higher. If the impact of the fall didn’t kill me, one of those cars would. I felt a sudden cold chill flush my entire body.
I never got the chance to know which one was going to cause my end, however. My parents just so happened to be taking the overpass my sister had trailed me to and the car screamed to a halt.
“Martha!” my mother shrieked and jumped out of the passenger side. My dad beat her to me though and pulled me down from the edge. I broke down out of relief once he had me on the ground. When at last I looked up, Miranda had disappeared.
My sister had been too startled by the sudden arrival of our parents to push me while she had the chance. But that wasn’t what it looked like to my parents.4

“I wasn’t trying to commit suicide!” I insisted for the zillionth time at my house.
“Then what exactly were you doing up on that ledge?” my father demanded firmly as my mother sobbed near me on the couch, holding me so hard I was losing circulation in my arms.
“I told you, it was Miranda,” I declared, trying to wiggle out of my mother‘s iron grip. But my parents weren’t about to buy that.
“The principal said you ditched school after awhile, and that’s where we find you. Miranda doesn’t exist anymore, and even if she did, she couldn’t push you, you know that! Martha, what’s going on?”
“If you won’t believe the truth, then I’m not going to make up some lie just to satisfy you!” I spat out over the sound of my mom’s crying.
“Martha, we want to help. Please, don’t hide this from us,” he begged me.
“I’m not hiding any-” I started protesting angrily, but froze mid-sentence. Miranda was standing in the entrance to the hallway.
I screamed and tried to jump up off the couch and run, but my mother held me tight. I kept right on screaming.
“Get her out of here! Get her out!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs.
“Martha, no one’s in here!” my mom called above my screams. I pointed at Miranda and repeated myself.
“Miranda isn’t here, honey! She’s gone!”
“She’s trying to kill me! Help, please get her out!” I cried, holding close to my mother and sobbing into her arms. I looked up again, after several minutes of my parents incessant promises and my pointless ramblings, and she was gone.
I breathed.
My parents let me sleep in their bed that night. I was too scared to sleep alone, and I knew that Miranda wouldn’t try anything with them so close. I also thought she would never go to my school again and attempt something there. I was once again wrong.
I was in cooking class taking a test when she next showed up. I was trying to make a very complicated pastry back in the kitchens. We take our tests one at a time, no one else in the room. I think that’s why she chose then. I never saw it coming; one minute I’m kneading dough, the next I have a bread knife held at my throat.
“You can’t avoid me forever,” she whispered into my ear. I ducked and shoved her against the counter behind me hard. The knife dropped to the floor after cutting my hands something horrid.
My twin tackled me down to the floor and held a rolling pin against my throat. I kicked her in the stomach a few times but to no avail; she wasn’t moving.
“Somebody help me, please,” I choked out loud enough for everyone in the adjoined classroom to hear. Miranda rolled off of me and grabbed up the knife again. She circled around me and pulled me to my feet from behind and returned the blade to my neck. The teacher ran into the room immediately and wrenched the knife from my sister. Then she started yelling at me.
“What on earth are you doing?!” she shrieked at me. My sister stared at me homicidally from behind her.
“Your luck won’t last forever, sis,” she growled. I turned back to the teacher, who was spitting fire, and tried to explain what happened. That did no good whatsoever, and when I looked around the room for Miranda she had once again disappeared.
I was sent to the office and my parents came and picked me up. This time, they wouldn’t believe that I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was covered in blood from the knife cutting my hands, I had scratches all over my neck, and I was bruised on my back pretty badly.
“I guess you just have to go see Tanisha again sooner than we expected,” my mom said, looking out the window.
“You guys have to believe me! It’s not me; it’s Miranda! I wouldn’t try to hurt myself and you know it!” I argued, pleading for them to believe me.
“We thought we did,” my father remarked coldly. The rest of the ride home was silent.
Once we arrived, my father locked me in my room while my mom called the Samms Psychological Center. He took out everything in sight I could possibly use to hurt myself: pens and pencils, all my metal hangers, hand sanitizer, my little radio, all my metal jewelry, even the thumbtacks out of the wall.
I was in there maybe five minutes before she arrived.
“What do you want?” I asked Miranda when I turned and saw her sitting on my bed. “How did you get in here?”
“I don’t exist darling sister. I can pop up anywhere you are. But I can change that, if you like,” she threatened in a gentle purr. Then she pulled the pillowcase from my pillow.
I backed up until I hit my dresser, then I slumped to the floor. Daddy had forgotten one thing that ‘I’ could do. Miranda hadn’t.
She walked toward me and slid the pillowcase around my neck like a scarf as I began screaming for my parents. I tried to push her away from me, but she was much stronger than I expected. I looked frantically at my dresser for something, anything, I could use to fight back. It finally hit me: there was hope.
I somehow managed to pull the pillowcase off and throw it across the room. Miranda went after it, and I pulled open the drawer and took out my weapon.
I had the bottle just opened when she turned around to see what I was doing. She rushed across the room and jumped on me, knocking it out of my hand. Pills went everywhere.
I found myself being dragged into the middle of the room. I reached up and clawed my sister on her face and arms. She responded by taking my lamp off the desk and hitting me over the head with it. I collapsed back to the floor.
Miranda pulled a shirt from the closet and wrapped it around my neck, forgetting the pillowcase. I tore it off of me and rolled onto my stomach, stretching out my arms in the direction of the pills, screaming for my parents the whole time.
Miranda climbed on top of me and grabbed my outstretched arms, pulling them behind my back. With a final, intense jerk of my hand, I brought my hand to my mouth and swallowed the pill I had grabbed several minutes ago. Miranda just laughed, and grabbed several more, throwing them at me tauntingly.
“One pill isn’t going to kill me, darling. Remember when you took one at the crazy center? It’s going to be a little harder for you than for me.”
I snatched up as many pills as I could in a matter of seconds and jumped to my feet, ignoring the pain in my head where Miranda had smacked me with the lamp. I backed to the back of the room, Miranda trailing me, and ran as fast as I could toward the door, kicking it down.
I ran through the living room into the kitchen, both my surprised parents and my furious sister trailing me. I threw all the pills into my mouth and grabbed a glass of tea from the table, swallowing them all.
“NO!” Miranda and both my parents screamed.
Miranda vanished. 5

“And then she just…disappeared,” I explained to Tanisha.
“Why didn’t you take the pills once she started trying to kill you?” she asked me.
“I-I forgot I had them, really. I don’t know. It didn’t occur to me until then.”
“Well, as long as you take one a day, you won’t get any more visits from her, okay?”
“Okay.”6

Killing Miranda was the hardest thing I ever had to do. And sometimes, I still miss her. She was after all, my sister. I honestly thought my imagination wouldn’t go that much into overdrive. But it’s never that simple now, is it?