Chapter 85. Recovery

Finding it wasn’t my intention.

I was really not searching for anything. Every morning since I returned from the hospital had begun in the same manner: slowly, heavily and excessively quietly. I felt as if the house was holding its breath. Mom had left for work early and her only goodbye was a quick kiss on my forehead.

On the counter leaning against the sugar bowl she had left a note.

* Sleep. Drink your tea. Don’t go to school. *

The final sentence was underlined twice with a solid black line as though my body wasn’t screaming that message at me every hour already. I was too weak to make it through the entire hallway without getting exhausted, much less walk through the crowded chaotic Blackridge.

With the weight of everything that had happened, the walls seemed to be closing in on me more and more these days.

I moved back and forth between the kitchen and the living room because I felt stuck in my own skin not because I needed anything. The col