Watch the Birds by Nicole Sheehan (smart ebook reader txt) 📖

would only be hurt in the end by making friends, I isolated myself (yet another wonderful ability I inherited from my father), constantly hiding my face in books. As if I wasn't already angry enough at the situation, my new Catholic school graded us on religious teachings such as Bible versus and daily Hail Mary's; and having never gone to Catholic church before, I didn't understand any of it. I was being forced ideas and beliefs that I just couldn't grasp. I was infuriated that this school treated these beliefs as just as necessary as math, science, english, and so on. It made no sense to me, especially in my irate state of mind. Out of pure anger and spite for this strange school I refused to complete any assignments that dealt with religion. As a result, I was barely passing. What kept me from failing was my excellent book reports. Isolating myself with books came in handy. However, at that point, I didn’t particularly care about passing the fifth grade.
I believe that if this day had never come...I may have been consumed by rage. The house was warm with a feeling I had not experienced in many months; it was...joy. My mom called me into her bedroom and I arrived surprised to see a smile on her face. I wasn’t the only one who had been unhappy. She said, “sit down,” gesturing to sit beside her on her bed. I smiled, somehow already knowing what she was going to say. With a toothy grin, she said, “Chris got a really good job offer...in Camarillo! We're moving back!” I exploded. Although a small part of me was still sad I was not going back to Quinne, I knew it was finally going to get better. Unable to even control myself, I jumped up and just started running. I ran out of the room, through the house, and into our spacious backyard where I could run even more - all the while with my black labrador puppy nipping at my heels excitedly. Even though it was probably fifty degrees outside, I ran out in my pajamas and played with my dog for over an hour - not even noticing the cold.

Chapter 4

We had only been in Tennessee for about seven months. I wasn’t even finished with the fifth grade when we settled into our new place in Camarillo. It was comfortable, and since I knew in my heart this time that we wouldn't be moving again, I was ecstatic. Finally...I was home.
I didn't think about my dad during all the years that I had been away from Camarillo - simply unable to cope with that on top of all the stress of moving around. But now that I was home - back in the same town as my dad - I thought everything would be better. I thought now that the matter of distance between us had been eliminated, it would be easier for him to visit me. I didn’t quite know how to think about my dad at that point, after all this time had passed without speaking to him. All i knew was: he was my father, and fathers are supposed to be there for their daughters - consistently. About a year went by...still no sign of him. And he knew I was back and where I lived...he had no excuse now. I was about a month into sixth grade, junior high, when I finally pulled all the facts out of the depths of my brain and looked at them clearly enough to see...that my dad just didn’t want me.
What I didn’t know was…my father was still in his little imaginary world - where I was simply gone forever because of my mom, and that was that. Daniel and my grandma on my dad’s side had come to visit me when I came home, which I was overjoyed about, but neither of them ever explained to me what the story was with my dad - and I didn’t have the nerve to ask, thinking they would start to blame me for not calling him. I had been wrought with guilt my entire life for never calling my father - but how could I? I thought he didn’t want to talk to me. It wasn’t until I was in the seventh grade when I went from being sad and confused about the situation to being angry. I thought, “Wait...I’m just a little girl. He’s an adult. He’s

supposed to be the one to seek me

out. What’s wrong with him? Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t I have a dad like all my friends? Why shouldn’t I deserve one? What’s wrong with me

?” I was home…but my problems were not over.
I had developed a certain habit, but it did not last long. Thank God for that, because I would be covered in scars had it prolonged. During seventh grade, the constant confusion became too much. I couldn't comprehend why my dad would abandon me, why it felt like nobody

liked or cared about me, why it all had to happen to me

, why God was punishing me, what I had done wrong. I don't really understand how this happened, but at some point, it became so painful to think about that my brain...shut down. Suddenly...I could feel nothing. I went numb. All that was left was melancholy. I remember many months going by in a dense fog, like I was on auto-pilot. It was only my subconscious mind that was aware of this shift, but I knew on the surface that something was wrong. I don't remember how, but I had scraped my knee one day. I sat and examined the open wound. I felt it sting...and...I liked it. I touched it with sweaty fingers to make it sting more. I'd found a substitute for my lack of emotional feeling - physical pain. I cannot describe the frame of mind I was in that made me do these things, and unfortunately, only a select few people will understand my motivations behind them. I spent many nights inflicting wounds on my own body, just to feel human. I was sick - mentally ill. It took months for my brain to finally turn back on. I suppose it just needed a break. I no longer felt an urge to cut myself after my emotions came back. However, the horrendous scars on my body will continue to serve as a reminder of just how disturbed of a child I was for the rest of my life.
Middle school was a horrible experience. It was the period of time in which I was finally realizing my dad didn’t want to be in my life - that he probably never really did. I envied every girl I saw bonding with her father, now knowing that was a love I was never going to have. I desperately craved male affection - any male affection.
Without even realizing it, I began to see the boys at my school in a different light. Instead of just being boys, they became alternatives. The day a boy showed me a significant sign of affection was the day I realized that boys can fill the void in my heart - at least for a moment. When I had my first “boyfriend” in seventh grade - it was extremely nerve-wracking. I wanted affection - badly - but any wrong move and he could leave me. And any form of rejection to me is salt on a life-long wound. I could not handle being rejected. But of course, I was - multiple times, by multiple middle school boyfriends. And my self-esteem dropped to a dangerously low level. I didn't understand why no one could love me. Then, Isaac happened.
We’d been good friends for a few months when Isaac and I finally expressed our feelings for each other at the beginning of eighth grade. At first glance, one might feel no thirteen-year-olds could find real love. Typically, that is true. But this was something clearly extraordinary. Our relationship was very different from anything either of us had experienced before - it was genuine. We truly enjoyed each other’s company and were not dating just for the sake of dating - as middle schoolers often do. I was completely overjoyed to be with him because he was not too shy to show me his real affection for me - and I lived off of that affection. It was pure bliss to me - like ecstasy. Someone loved me. But one day - it went too far. We'd been dating for about a month when it happened. We were alone in his room just kissing when he shyly noted that he happened to have a condom…Now remember, I’d spent a lifetime believing there was something wrong with me because of my father not wanting me. I was extremely insecure. I believed that if I did not have sex with Isaac, there was a very good chance he would feel I was not worth staying with. I needed

him to stay with me. So, unable to handle the thought of being left again, I caved. I was thirteen years old, and had never even considered sex before.
I had thrown away my innocence. Then, when word got out at my school that “Nicole and Isaac are having sex,” I became the school slut and lost all of my girlfriends. More rejection. In addition to that, the impression I had gotten from society was that sex was a bad thing, so I thought I was a terrible person for doing it. I often felt terrified my father might discover what I’d done - and then found myself furious for still caring about what he thinks. I was still very much in a state of confusion, sadness, and anger. Nonetheless, I felt I had all I needed, which was Isaac. And somehow, despite my emotional instability and neediness, we stayed together. I was damaged, but he was okay with that - it made me different from all the other girls. With my lack of independence, extreme insecurity, horrible fear of change, and the ever-worsening heartache for every day that I didn‘t hear from my dad, I don’t know how I would have survived high school without Isaac. Though it was his stubborn hormones that provoked the moment of weakness that only further damaged my soul, he truly loved me - and I truly loved him. We both knew in our hearts it was real. And since I was in desperate need of real love, it was incredibly healing for me. Years went by and the longer we stayed together, the more secure I felt about my future, feeling more and more confident that I will never have to face the day when Isaac leaves me. By the time I was a junior in high school, I was feeling substantially better about myself. Things had become stable for the first time in my life; I found friends I could relate to, learned how to eliminate my dependence on Isaac without having to leave him, and found the closest thing to peace as I have ever had. I was doing well…or so I thought.

Chapter 5

I was eighteen years old and had just graduated high school when I realized that the discomfort I’d been feeling in my lower back for the past few months had evolved into a sharp pain. I ignored it as best as I could for about a month until I became concerned. The doctor prescribed antibiotics, physical therapy, ultrasounds