He looks at it in his hands.
"Take it and go."
He looks at me.
For a long moment, he looks at me, and I look back. I think about the park and the strawberries and the dedication he made up and the way he said this isn't a mistake, you'll see with such complete certainty, like he could see further down the road than I could and had already checked what was there.
He couldn't see this.
Or maybe he could.
Either way, it hurts.
"Go," I say.
He stands.
He picks up the pendant from my tray, and I open my mouth to tell him to leave it, but then I close it because I don't want iteither. Not right now. Not tonight. Tonight, it is just the thing that undid me, and I don't want it in this room.
He holds it in his closed fist.
He walks to the door.
He stops.
He doesn't turn around. He stands there with his back to me and his hand on the door and I watch his shoulders.
He doesn't say anything.
He goes.
The door closes for the third time, and the room is quiet.
I can't breathe right.
Not because of my leg or my ribs or anything, they fixed in surgery. Something else. Something that doesn't show up on a scan. It's sitting in the center of my chest, and it's heavy in a way I've never felt heavy before. I keep waiting for it to shift, and it doesn't shift. It just sits there and presses.
They gutted me.
That's the only word for it. Not hurt. Not betrayed. Gutted. Like everything that was inside me — every feeling I trusted, every moment I thought was real, every time I felt safe or chosen or seen — was never mine to begin with. It was theirs. They built it, they held it, and they let me think I found it.
And I am lying in this hospital bed with a body full of damage and a chest full of something I don't have a word for yet, and I realize that this is what it feels like. This weight. This specific can't-breathe, can't-cry, can't-do-anything-but-stare-at-the-ceiling feeling.
This is what it feels like to be destroyed.
They took everything from me.
Chapter 61: Adela
Thedoctorscallmea fast healer.
They say it like it's a compliment. Like my body doing what it's supposed to do faster than expected is something I earned. The orthopedic surgeon comes in on day four and looks at my scans. He takes one look at me and says, "You're doing remarkably well, Miss Kalkaska.”
I thank him.
And I don’t mention how empty I feel on the inside.
My mother takes me home after six days.
