While walking down the stairs I black out for a second. Only a second, but it’s enough for me to tumble down, down towards the bottom of the stairwell. I regain consciousness while the world rushes past me, a blurred attempt to make sense of the last few days. This seems to be a fitting end to my week considering how I got here. One week ago I received a letter in the mail detailing the death of my sister. I hadn’t kept in touch with her, and now would never have a chance to. My sister had suffered from chronic depression. Suffers is not quite a strong enough word, but it was the one that doctors always used when describing her condition. “Condition” helped make it sound clinical. Like it wasn’t really real. As long as I used the doctor’s language it wasn’t real. It wasn’t really happening. It wasn’t really my sister. It was just someone that you read about in the newspapers.
My sister, Jodie, lived in New York. I couldn’t tell you any more than that, as she moved there after we had our fight. We used to live in the Midwest together, where precisely really doesn’t matter. We had gone our separate ways for college and just stayed away until our parents died in a fire. That had been the start of a lot of things. After they died we both came back home and talked with the lawyers about our parent’s affairs. Luckily they had done an excellent job of maintaining their will. Everything had been taken care of in that document. We didn’t have to sort through anything; just let the lawyers take care of it, and bring it to us. I was in shock at the time, and just was happy that I still had my sister. I had lost my parents, and the money was slight comfort compared to the loss of their warmth and support.
It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough to help make ends meet. Jodie and I decided to live together, to create some stability now that we were alone together. We’d never really kept up with our extended family, although I’d never questioned why. It was just something that the other kids had that I never did and that’s how it was. We found an apartment near the edge of the city. There were some families around there, and also some older couples. I guess that’s what made it feel safe. I’d been told that if you can find a neighborhood where the elderly feel safe living, it’s a good neighborhood. We didn’t need to find jobs at first, as we had just come into a sum of money. We used to fight over what to do with that money. She wanted just to use it as a stop gap measure while we got on our feet and found jobs, while I wanted to invest it so that if we lost our livelihood later we had something to fall back on. Neither one of us would compromise. Mom would’ve told us it was because of our Father, and Dad would’ve admitted it outright as well. He was always quite stubborn, while Mom kept life in perspective for him. They were an incredibly well matched couple, finding each other’s faults and shortcomings, and counterbalancing them, so that they would both be stable.
My sister and I definitely could not counterbalance each other, instead amplifying our differences and intensifying our conflicts. I think that’s why she started running at first. Just to get away from me and use that energy for something other than pulling my hair out when we’d brawl. I’ll admit it, she was always more girly than I was, although she was plenty a tomboy as well. I think it was the twin sisters thing. She had been born a minute earlier than I, and never let me live it down. She always had to be the older sister, so I decided to be the stronger sister. The more competitive sister. She came first and claimed the feminine roles, so I tried to fit into the gaps left in our family. Of course, she couldn’t leave me alone, so we both came out very androgynous. She had better luck with the boys than I did. I never could find stable relationships. We’d fought throughout our childhood, usually because of boys. I was always jealous of her ability to attract guys that seemed to be worth the time of day. I could only find losers. Or as she posited, I just scared all the cute ones away. It’s not my fault they were scared of me, I’m a strong woman and they should’ve been able to match me and keep up. Not run away and find someone less intimidating.
She would run just for short periods at first, but as time went on the runs became longer and longer. Our stalemate was never resolved, and in effect we neither invested nor spent the money. Instead it just sat safely in the bank in our parent’s account, waiting for our legal action to draw it out and give it new life again. I found a job working at a local bank, just doing teller work. Nothing to write home about, although I suppose I had no one to write home to. It was just me and her. She had more trouble finding a job, but of course managed to find a boyfriend. His name was Keith. He tried to play guitar and sing, but had something of a tin ear. So did Jodie, so the two of them worked well together. He was a local construction worker, and drove a pickup truck. A veritable good ole’ boy. I should’ve been more suspicious of him than I was, as good ole’ boys always cause trouble, but I let it slide as he would actually keep up with me in sports, and I loved finally having a challenge from a boy.
Keith and Jodie spent a lot of time together, and after a few months he helped out with the expenses around our place. He made enough in construction that Jodie never had to pull her half of the rent on her own, just mooch off of him. I paid my way, although barely, but I would be damned if I would let a man do it for me. I noticed that when he was around we didn’t fight as much, but when he was busy with work and couldn’t come over we’d fight a lot more. She’d always go for runs after we fought, but she kept up her running when he was around as well. The runs always seemed longer while he was over than the ones after we would fight. I would hang out with him in the evenings, while Jodie was running, and I started to develop feelings for him. I was jealous, as she had found a man that I wanted for my own, but knew I stood no chance with. She never handled my jealousy well, especially now as it seemed well founded. I needed a man that could keep up with me, and the only one I’d found was her boyfriend. She would tell me that I didn’t want to date him, and if I only knew what she knew, I’d stay away from him. This was, of course, ludicrous, as if he was so terrible, why did she stay with him then.
One day I received a phone call from my old roommate that I hadn’t heard from since we graduated together. I planned to visit her for a week, but due to weather causing trouble I had to come back early. It was either stay with her longer or leave before the storm would close the airport, and I couldn’t afford to miss more work than I was already. I came back a few three days earlier than I had planned and came back to quite a scene. As I walked up to the front door I heard screaming from inside. I had never seen, nor heard Keith and Jodie fight, and so dropped my bags and ran to open the door. Just as I was turning the key it went silent inside and I saw her on the ground with him standing over her. He had his belt off, and was threatening to strike her again. This drove me into a fury and I assaulted him from behind. I had enough leverage that he never stood a chance. He wasn’t out of shape, but I just got the jump on him. After taking the belt away so he couldn’t hit me or her, I laid into him, and I think I broke a rib of his. I told him to leave the house and never return, nor to ever lay a finger on my sister again. Beaten, but not broken he spat at me and told me that a bitch like me would never find a man with an attitude like that. I raised the belt, and he hobbled out of our house. I never saw him again. She told me that he had beaten her since they’d been dating a month. She always tolerated it because she was afraid, and felt guilty. After talking with her for longer, I learned that Dad had used to beat her as well. I don’t know why I never noticed, nor why he never hit me. I just know that it was enough for him to take it out on her, and leave me alone.
She had been running longer because she couldn’t deal with staying around him. She had started to become depressed, and loved the runner’s high she would acquire from her longer runs. The runs that went past her endurance. The runs that kept her away from him, away from Dad. But she could never run long enough or far enough. She always had to stop; she always had to come home. And Keith had always been waiting for her. Waiting for her to slip up and for him to find an excuse to hit her again while I was at work. No wonder she could never hold a job, as she had such low self-esteem. I tried to talk with her about some of this, but after drawing it out of her she became angry with me. She had repressed a lot of this and there was nothing she could do about it, she said. It would be better just to move on and act like nothing had happened. I never accepted this and pushed her to try therapy. She went for a little bit at first, but soon either skipped out on her appointments or just sat there and said nothing. Although I knew that she wasn’t sabotaging this just to spite me, my competitive nature would get the better of me, and I would stop supporter her. We would fight, and finally I couldn’t stand it any more. I know I should’ve kept supporting her, but I just couldn’t stand to keep myself and her going at the same time. I let her have the inheritance money to support her while she got back on her feet, and we both moved away from home. We couldn’t stand to live together or near anything that reminded us of home. I couldn’t stand the thought of my parents having died there, and she couldn’t stand the thoughts of Keith and Dad and all the memories they brought with them.
I moved to the west, while she took the east, ending up in New York City. We kept in touch a bit at first, but soon drifted apart. She was still stubborn, and I wouldn’t try and trump her adamantine resistance to my opinions. Thus our conversations were always curt and pointless. I got a new job as a waitress while I worked on my Master’s in English. I had found a passion in learning to write, but still had trouble with some of the syntax behind writing. I loved the semantics, but found spelling and grammar to be sticking points that kept tripping me up while I did my graduate work. I never did find any fellow that could quite match me, but I did find some colleagues that stayed with me as long as it stayed professional. My fellow Grad students were a comfort, but only in the school atmosphere. I couldn’t be social with them, for fear of them discovering my past. I was ashamed at my actions and what I had let go on first with Dad and second with Keith. I was especially guilty, as I hadn’t even had anything done to me, and yet I still felt as though I were somehow to blame, or that it had affected me, while no one had ever struck me outside of sports.
Then I got the letter and for the first two days just didn’t leave my house. I couldn’t believe that she had killed herself. I knew she had been having problems, but this was my sister. She would never let me win an argument without climbing a mountain to prove my point, she challenged me and met me blow for blow, and just gave up on life? Inconceivable. I just refused to believe it. I didn’t eat or sleep or check my email or leave my house. I just stayed there in a constant state of shock. No music, no TV, no media. I just kept it quiet and dark and thought at a million miles a minute. I was completely alone now. I couldn’t even fall back onto contacting Jodie anymore. She was gone too. I had no friends to any great extent, and now my family, the only parts of it that mattered, were all gone. I mustered the energy the third day to go to campus and tell my professors that I had to take a leave of absence for personal reasons and would explain after I got back. I booked the first flight I could to New York and threw some clothing into my bag. People kept trying to make small talk with me while I was at the airport, on the plane, but I was incapable of talking with them. I only talked with the security personnel that I had to. Upon arriving in New York a friend of my sister met me with a sign above her head and took me to my sister’s apartment. I would finally know where it was Jodie had been living.
We talked a bit about her, as I had to confide with someone any of the feelings that had been running through my head. She hadn’t ever found a counselor she felt comfortable with, a new excuse each time. She kept up her running, and had met some people while running through Central Park. She had become a barista at a local coffee shop of some note. A little over a week before she killed herself she had been carrying some equipment around the store and slipped on a spill. She dropped the coffee maker onto her foot, and broke it pretty soundly. She had also sprained her other ankle in the fall. Her friends from the coffee shop and runner friends helped her back to her apartment after she was released from the hospital. She told them all she’d be fine, she had crutches to get around her place, and that she had food, she’d let them know if she needed anything, or wanted visitors, but she really just needed a few days to herself to rest and recover. One of her runner friends worried about leaving her alone, especially as she couldn’t run while she had a sprained ankle and the other foot in a cast, but Jodie shooed her away, promising that she’d be fine, and some cabin fever would just make her appreciate it all the more when she got back outside. As it turned out she couldn’t stand losing that release. She had been running for most of her life now, and it was all that kept her going. Now that she couldn’t run she was trapped. She needed a way out, and so she swallowed some pills, and one night stopped running.
I couldn’t quite handle all of this, but heard the story while sitting in her flat on the couch in her living room. I’d been in shock for a little while now, and just had been trying to get through to here, to find out what had happened. To find that she’d just been playing an elaborate and cruel joke on me so that she’d have the upper hand and get my goat again. But it was all too real. It had all happened, and now I was alone. I hadn’t eaten in a few days, and had only slept about four hours in the past three days. I suppose it was inevitable that I blacked out when I was leaving her apartment. She lived on the second floor, and I had forgotten the name of the street she lived on. Luckily after I tumbled down to the street and lost consciousness the landlady found me and called 911. If she hadn’t I don’t know what would’ve happened. I had given my phone number to one of Jodie’s friends and she came and found me in the hospital. I had a concussion and a broken arm, but surprisingly no other substantial effects from my fall. I was starting to show signs of malnourishment and my brain was not doing too well from lack of sleep, but after knocking myself out for several hours I started to recoup my sleep loss.
I eventually was released, collected some of Jodie’s things and came back west. I had her body cremated and poured her ashes out in Central Park. Her running friends agreed that it was one of the only places she had found peace in her life. Upon returning to the University, they were very understanding after I explained what had transpired. I had lost my job, as I didn’t inform them of any of this before leaving town, but found new employment on campus as a tutor. I coached kids in writing while other people helped them with punctuation. I opened up a little bit more to my colleagues and started to have a social life. Mostly though, I stayed fairly withdrawn. I hadn’t ever been too open with anyone outside my family, and couldn’t start now, even though they had been taken away from me. I kept an eye on the kids that would bring their writing to me, and helped point a few towards getting counseling while they were at school. Hopefully none of them would have to go through what Jodie had gone through, bearing her burden alone for so long, until finally she could go no further. My life continued pretty much as it had been with one notable exception.
I took up running.
