000. Psst, I see dead people.

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000. Psst, I see dead people.
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Jolene Patterson's Diary, July 9th, 1992

So, the therapist said writing in this journal — or diary or whatever the heck you want to call it — would be good for me after Johanna died, but I don't need it. Johanna is next to me; she sleeps beside me, braids my hair into those pigtails I hate but she loves. My twin is with me, so why does everyone else say she's gone? That she's buried in that dusty old cemetery?

Mom's taken time off work, and she barely leaves her room anymore. She moves through the house like a shadow, her body present but her eyes vacant. It feels like I never see her. I keep trying to tell her that Johanna is still with us. She didn't leave—she would never leave us. She would never leave me.

Michael (my second best friend. The first will always be Johanna.) tried to come over again but my dad just sent him away, I can't face him. Or anyone.

The first time I said Johanna is still here, my parents looked at me with this awful sadness that seemed to press them down, like they were carrying a weight too heavy to bear. The second time, Lucas threw a glass at me and shouted for me to go to my room, that I was making mom and dad upset. (He's two years older, so he thinks he's in charge, that he knows what's best for me, for all of us.) The third time, Mom screamed at me, her voice raw, and then she started sobbing, saying I need to move on, that I have to stop clinging to a ghost.

But why would I even need to move on? I still see Johanna—even after the accident. (She has my face, but the left side is torn and bloody, a deep gash has taken away her eye—those eyes that always looked at me with such understanding, such love.) Sometimes, I reach out to touch her cheek, and my fingers come away cold, slick with something I can't quite name. But she's there. She's there.

At night, when the house is quiet, I hear her humming the lullaby Mom used to sing to us when we were little. She sits at the edge of my bed, her voice soft and sweet, and I close my eyes and try to pretend that everything is like it used to be. That we're just playing hide-and-seek again, that Johanna is hiding somewhere, ready to jump out and shout, "Gotcha!" But she never does, and the humming fades, leaving me with only shadows and the sound of my own breath.

The therapist talks about "grieving" and "processing my loss." He says things like "stages of acceptance" and "letting go," but what does he know? How could he understand? He didn't know Johanna. He didn't know how she was always the brave one, how she'd hold my hand during thunderstorms and make up stories about us being explorers in some wild jungle. How could he possibly understand that she still does that, even now?

Maybe it's better this way, just me and Johanna, and the way the world slips away when it's just us. But sometimes, a thought creeps in—what if they're right? What if... Johanna isn't really there, not the way I think she is? What if she's not with me, but trapped somewhere, waiting for me to understand, to set her free?

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