trust funds and punishers | frankel

Birdie wants it to rain. She’s tired of the sun, of the warm beams of light trying to break into her bedroom. The curtains are drawn tight, but slivers are still sneaking through, and she glares at them from where she’s tucked into her bed. The blankets are a heavy mess on top of her, but they’re keeping her grounded. She’s barely moved from under them in days. Nobody is expecting her to.

She doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s hard to without crying, or blaming herself, or apologizing over and over until sorry doesn’t sound like a word anymore. She knows she needs help, but where can she go? The hospital had given her two nights of rest before sending her home with an appointment two weeks out to get her stitches removed. There are a few psychologists around— Damaris had been seeing one, before she’d left— but Birdie can’t afford one now. She wonders where that leaves her. She wonders if the hospital would have taken her more seriously if she’d carved a little deeper, and then tells herself she shouldn’t be thinking about that.

There’s a steady ache in her arms, traveling up just past her elbow. It reminds her of when she had her cast, the thick plaster wrapped around her forearm. The bandages aren’t as obtrusive, but they’re on both her wrists this time, and she can feel the sutures underneath every time she moves.

When she sleeps, she dreams of tearing them out with her teeth.

She misses the painkillers she was doped up on in the hospital. They knocked her out, made her head dizzy so she didn’t have to think. Too much of them would be bad for the baby, though, and she’s already put it in enough danger. It isn’t even out of the womb yet and she can already feel herself being branded an unfit mother. She wasn’t thinking when she did it, that’s what she keeps telling herself. She wasn’t thinking of her family, of the helpless person she was supposed to be protecting. No, she was only thinking of herself, of her own stupid pain, as if every person in the world isn’t also in pain. She just can’t get over her own selfishness. Maybe her mother had been right about her.

She drags her knuckles over the swell of her stomach and thinks, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

The stairs begin to creak. It’s probably Leland, coming up to make sure she hasn’t hung herself out the window yet. She chuckles to herself, even though it isn’t funny— it’s sad, and they both know it, and neither one of them wants to talk about it, but they’re adults, they have to. She struggles to sit up, not wanting to put too much weight on her arms, and when she looks back up, she sees her brother in the doorway.

“Pierre?” Fuck. She hunches over, tries to bunch her blankets over her stomach. “Who let you in? I don’t— I don’t want you to see me like this.”