Despite my efforts to walk around the room a few times a day, I’m weak and slow-moving.
I think it’s the medication. Hopefully, I’ll be done with this course of antibiotics soon.
Supposedly, I caught a chest infection from a nurse who didn’t realize she was sick.
It felt like a regular cold to me, but with my immune system weakened from years of being underfed, Dr. Clarke felt it was a necessary course of action to put me on meds.
I told him I’ve never taken medicine for anything in my life.
I’m sure I would have been fine without them, but he insisted.
So, here I am trying to get around on wobbly legs.
I wince as I crouch slightly to reach the bottom drawer of the nightstand.
While several pairs of academy-supplied baggy pajamas fill up the top and middle drawers, the only set of clothes that I actually own are sitting in the bottom drawer, freshly washed and pressed when I was admitted to this ward.
It’s the outfit I was wearing the day I was stolen away from the place I thought was my home, and it’s the outfit I plan to wear when I finally get a chance to walk out of here.
I take the soft, worn-to-death stone-washed jeans and long-sleeved cream-colored shirt out of the drawer, along with my threadbare socks and underwear. I hug these items to my chest as I straighten back up.
These are the only things I have that belong to me.
A lump rises in my throat when I think of that.
Nothing I had in that house was ever really mine.
I didn’t have money to buy anything.
Everything I had was given to me by Colleen.
The tiny black and white TV she gave me for my 13th birthday is the most expensive thing I ever owned, and it’s lost to me now. Along with the rest of my clothes, and the flowers I took from the gardens to press and keep.
You can’t go back and get any of it.
It’s the first time that realization has hit me, and it hurts so deep I can barely stand it.
My vision blurs as I fight back tears, and my chest starts to tighten.
You’ll feel better once you’ve been outside.
I can only hope that’s true. It’s always helped to be out in nature in the past.
This is a little different. I’m not just in a randomly blue mood.
Everything has changed.
My whole world has been turned upside down.
I swallow the lump in my throat as I move toward the bathroom, shuffling my feet when my legs feel unsteady. I force myself to concentrate on what I’m doing, pushing the melancholy thoughts out of my head.
I take my time in the bathroom, and it’s only when I start to get dressed that I realize I’ve gained more weight than I thought.
Though my clothes were always a little on the loose side, thanks to being handed down from Colleen, now they actually feel kind of tight.
The jeans I used to keep up over my hips using a spare shoelace no longer seem to need that help to stay in place, which, as weird as it feels, isn’t really a problem.
On the other hand, my suddenly skin-tight light-colored shirt leaves me feeling self-conscious.
