Page 33 of Bitter Truths

But the beeping won’t stop.

I crack my eyes open to a white ceiling. The hospital. Disinfectant smells burn my nostrils.

My hands are bandaged. The nurses had to restrain me. I remember clawing at my neck until it bled, digging my nails into the places where scent glands sit beneath my skin. Useless glands that mock me with their existence.

I want them gone.

There’s a pressure around my wrist. Warm. Solid.

I turn my head, muscles stiff and uncooperative. Mom slumps in the chair beside my bed, her fingers wrapped around me. Even in sleep, she won’t let go... like she’s afraid I’ll slip away.

Maybe I will.

Her face looks like she’s aged ten years… eyes swollen, makeup long gone, worry lines carved deep.

I try to speak. Nothing comes but a dry rasp. The sound wakes her. She jerks upright, blinking until her eyes focus on mine.

“Bianca,” she breathes. “Oh, thank God. You’re awake.”

Awake seems like the wrong word. My eyes are open, but I’m dead inside.

“Don’t try to talk,” she says, reaching for water. “Your throat is damaged from the screaming.”

She holds the straw to my cracked lips. The water feels like salvation and torture at the same time.

It all comes flooding back.

The ridge.

Whitney’s text.

A video I wish I could unsee.

My whole body flinches, and Mom’s hand tightens around my wrist.

“No,” she says quickly. “Don’t go there. Stay with me.”

But I can’t. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, hot and endless. I don’t make a sound.

“Oh, baby.” I hear her let out a sob.

She lowers the bed rail and slides in beside me, careful of the IV lines and monitors. Her arms wrap around my lifeless body, pulling me against her warmth.

“I know,” she speaks into my matted hair. “I know you’re hurting.”

Her words don’t help. She doesn’t understand. No one understands what I’ve lost.

Sobs tear from me once again, violent enough to shake the whole bed. I clutch at my mom like she’s the only thing keeping me tethered to earth.

Maybe she is.

My physical body might be here, but the girl I once was is gone, gone, gone.

“Mama,” I manage, burrowing against her.

She pulls me as close as she can, kissing my hair and rubbing my back.

I close my eyes, letting darkness pull me under again. Better to drift than remain in a world where breathing feels like dying.