Then I go to bed and pretend I'll be able to sleep. Pretend tomorrow won't hurt when I wake up and remember everything. Pretend my heart isn't breaking over a three-second kiss on a cold balcony.
The bracelet catches the light from the street outside my window. A single star, shining in the dark.
1
MAYA
The highway blurs in front of me, white lines disappearing under my tires too fast. Seventy-five in a sixty zone. My foot lifts, and the engine's hum drops an octave.
Everything I own is in this car. Two duffel bags in the trunk, a few garbage bags full of clothes in the back seat, because I didn't have suitcases. I didn't exactly have time to be dignified about leaving. My laptop, the screen cracked in one corner. A box of nursing textbooks I can't bring myself to throw away, even though I'll never open them again.
That's it. Twenty-six years of existence reduced to what fits in a shitty Honda Civic with busted air conditioning and a Check Engine light that's been on for six months.
My phone buzzes in the cup holder. The screen lights up, casting a blue glow across my lap. I don't look at it. It's probably another email from the hospital's HR department. Another passive-aggressive message about"completing the termination paperwork"or"returning hospital property,"like I stole something.
I've got nothing left to return. They took everything when they fired me.
The sun sits low, turning the sky into layers of orange and pink that bleed into each other like watercolors. It's beautiful in that way that sunsets are when you're too numb to feel anything. I should appreciate it. I should pull over and take a picture or some shit. Instead, I'm counting the miles until I reach Hartford, watching the green signs tick past.Forty-three more. Forty-two. Forty-one.
My wrists itch.
I know I shouldn't scratch them. I know what's under the long sleeves of my sweater—old scars that have faded to white lines, raised welts that throb if I bend my wrists wrong.
I have a few that are fresh from last night, when the walls of my apartment closed in, and I couldn't breathe, and the only thing that made sense was the bite of metal against skin. The release. The way everything goes quiet for just a second.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, my hands aching. I force myself to focus—on the road, on the textured rubber beneath my palms, on getting to Emma’s. On pretending I’m okay.
He raped me.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it, dragging me under like a riptide. I see his face—the way he smiled before he locked the door. Feel his hands, rough and too big, pinning my wrists above my head. Smell the antiseptic of the hospital mixed with his cologne, something expensive that I used to think smelled nice before it became the scent of my nightmares.
A horn blares.
I jerk the wheel right, heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurts. The car swerves back into my lane, tires squealing, barely missing the guardrail. Metal flashes in my peripheral vision. That was too close, way too close. Another horn, longer this time. A truck speeds past me, the driver's middle finger visible through his window, his mouth moving in what's probably a string of curses I can't hear.
Fuck.
I pull onto the shoulder and slam the car into park. The engine idles, rattling the whole frame. My hands tremble so badly I can’t hold the wheel. My chest is too tight, ribs constricting like someone’s squeezing me. I can’t breathe. Can’t?—
"You're okay," I say out loud. My voice sounds foreign, thin, and shaky. "You're okay. You're okay."
I'm not okay.
I haven't been okay in over a year. Not since Lily.
She was only six. Had a laugh that could light up the whole pediatric ward, this bright bubbling sound that made even the sickest kids smile. Blonde pigtails that her mom braided every morning. A stuffed elephant she carried everywhere. Pneumonia that turned septic before anyone caught it.
I was her nurse. I should've caught it.
I didn't.
She coded on my shift. I did chest compressions until my arms gave out, until my shoulders screamed, and someone pulled me off her tiny body. It wasn't enough. Nothing was enough.
I'm still not over it. I still see her face every time I close my eyes. Her skin was going gray, her lips turning blue, the way her hand went limp in mine.
Three months ago, I went to my supervisor for help. Told him I couldn't do it anymore, couldn't watch another kid die, couldn't trust myself to keep anyone safe. I was falling apart. Having panic attacks in the bathroom. Crying in the med room. I needed someone to tell me it was okay to step back, to take a break, to not be strong for once.
He said he understood. Said he needed help with something in the supply closet, and that we could finish our talk there while he grabbed what he needed.
