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"Shoot all the bluejays you want, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."
-Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

"Did you know he wasn't like the others?"
I didn't.
"Did you know how much room he was taking up in your thoughts?"
Yes.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
Pray?
She frowned down at me with coldness, her pale, bony hands reaching for the thick folder that contained all my files, like hundreds of private journal entries organized into perfect charts and comment boxes. I was afraid they would all slide out in one, graceful mess, but her grip was firm, and the folder landed neatly on her lap. Slap.
"Next week," she told me, hastily jotting something down on a post-it and sticking it on the inside of the folder. She licked a finger and turned a page, licked her finger, turned another page. "We'll try light therapy, since your brain has seemed to adapt too quickly to the..."
"Uh, no," I said very quietly, shaking my head. "I think I'll be okay."
"Excuse me?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "You haven't been reacting to the melatonin, and according to what you've recently reported back, your mind has not been in any condition to--"
"No," I said again, this time a little louder. As if she knew, so quickly and certainly, that I was unstable. As if she knew any of the things I never told her and exactly what I needed, like she was some kind of prophet or mind reader. "I'm okay. I'm fine."
"Your mother won't allow it," my therapist rolled her eyes and shuffled the rest of the files in a cabinet drawer beneath her desk, stuffing mine in. "We did everything to get that person out of your life, and now we need to remove him from your mind."
"That's not possible. I don't want that."
"You should want it," she walked around her desk and grabbed my wrist so hard, I prepared myself for a fracture. "It's the only way you'll be able to live a normal life."
I stared down at her hand and then into her stern face, the glassy eyes behind her old-fashioned wire rimmed glasses. A normal life, I repeated to myself as she dragged me out the door and smiled, distracted, at the receptionist who rushed to minimize several windows on her monitor.
"Set up an appointment for her in the next week, for light therapy. Goodbye now," was all my therapist said, noticing barely and releasing her grip on my arm to pat my head. The receptionist nodded and started click-clacking noisily on her computer.
"Is your wrist all right?" she whispered as my therapist retreated back to her office. "I don't believe Patricia was in one of her better moods today.. Would you like some ice for that?"
I turned to her slowly, raising my arm halfway and staring into her worried eyes. I was tired, hungry, and, most importantly, distracted by my thoughts of that person. A normal life. Like anyone wanted one of those. "Okay. Can I get it to go?"