Chapter 4

The snow was falling heavily the next week as Claire visited the supermarket. She kept the beanie on, low on her face so it hooded her eyes. Gray and she had used up a chunk of her groceries and it was time to get more.

The bell chimed when she entered. She grabbed a basket and wandered around the perimeter.

It started as a normal shopping trip. She examined vegetables, put the greenest and cleanest ones in her basket. Stuck a loaf of bread in, spices, eggs, pasta, and rice. Then a cut of meat – something she didn't pay much attention to. While looking at flours, footsteps echoed an aisle over.

"Hey," they stopped moving. "Haven't seen you in a while, how are you?"

Claire shook her head and turned back to the baking goods, zoning the stranger's conversation out. She was low on the stuff after giving Ellen her only unopened sack.

"… she do anyway?"

She only caught the end of the sentence. That was Elli's voice.

She slowly straightened her posture. She didn't know who was talking, but she really wasn't in the mood to get noticed and caught in conversation right now. She didn't want to be sucked into a conversation with Eli. She hadn't mentally prepared herself to be friendly yet.

"You are getting too invested in this girl."

"Butt out," Elli sounded irritated.

"Who do you think you are, seriously? Yesterday you saved her from dying, and now you're gonna get her banged by Mr. Anger Management? C'mon!" the annoyed voice replied.

Claire's ears perked, as she realized they were talking about her. Who else was dying in the snow yesterday? She assumed the annoyed voice belonged to Karen, the daughter of the owners, who occasionally walked around and pretended to work. The only girl who could put any local's beauty to shame.

"I'm not letting anyone do anything. She's an adult. Who are you to point the finger about sleeping with people?"

Karen scoffed. "What crawled up your ass this morning?"

Elli huffed. "Nothing. Look, she obviously doesn't want to stand up for herself, so somebody's gotta do it. Right?" Elli said easily.

"Somebody, nobody—it's a fine line," Karen replied with a bored tone. "I just think you shouldn't bother. She's obviously a lost cause. Why do you bother, anyway?"

"She's my best friend, that's exactly the reason I'm doing it. Even if she wasn't, she deserves it. She has done nothing wrong to me, or to anyone else for that matter."

She wanted to snort at Elli's comment.

She obviously didn't know anything, because she had done her fair share of wrongs against people.

"Why can't you find a normal hobby, like most people?" Karen sighed. "What happened to good old shopping?"

Elli laughed, and the bell-like chime echoed through the almost-empty store.

"I would never give up on shopping, you know that," Elli cheered, "but helping a person isn't about hobbies, it's about doing what's right."

"I see someone's been with Dr. Trent too much," Karen mocked.

"Just because you don't have a heart doesn't mean I shouldn't be using mine."

"I should be insulted, but sadly, I'm not," Karen had a smile in her voice. "C'mon, let's go. We wouldn't want to keep the boys waiting."

Elli didn't verbally respond, and Claire heard the door open. She looked over to it, and she watched her best friend walk out with the clicking sound from their heels.

In one swift motion, Karen looked over her shoulder and grinned like a Cheshire Cat back at Claire. She knew she was in the other aisle the whole time?

The shop door shut behind them.

She didn't move for several moments because she was too angry. She didn't even move her arm, still stretched out to grab the flour.

The superiority complex seemed to be a trait that they shared in their circle of friends. Was Elli getting some sort of hero complex out of being friends with Claire? She obviously had hung out too much with them.

Claire was embarrassed that Karen set her up. Even more furious over the fact that Elli thought she needed saving; that she needed someone to protect her from all the vile things people did and said to her.

As if Elli could even make the slightest difference.

Apparently, she liked to act as if Claire was some helpless kitten in the company of others. As if they weren't real friends and Claire was a charity case.

Karen was most likely right—Elli was just looking for a new hobby. She probably wanted a patient to makeover however she wished.

Elli was mistaken if she thought she would be someone's project.

Elli was wrong about another thing, too. Claire didn't need anyone to stand up for her. Didn't she get that Claire was trying to fade into the background and become invisible? There was a reason why she remained on the sidelines and it was surprising that Elli didn't get that.

Claire guessed Elli had her head so far shoved up that she wouldn't know left from right, or when it was time to back the hell off. Just because they were friends didn't mean it had to stay that way—that they were going to be that way forever.

The things Elli said almost hurt more than all the bad things Claire thought about herself. Elli made her out to be a weak person and she honestly didn't see herself that way.

A weak person wouldn't even bother getting up in the morning.

"Having troubles with picking?"

Claire's eyes refocused on reality and she snapped her hand back like it had burned her.

It was Anna, a soft-spoken natural beauty, the mother of the local librarian and wife of a great adventurer.

"Sorry."

"No need to apologize, you seemed frozen there for a while."

Claire blushed and nodded.

"Are you from around here?"

She grimaced, but faded to indifference. "Yes."

"I've never seen you before. Where do you live?"

The truth was, they had seen each other before. It was last year at the big New Years party at the inn Elli dragged her to. Anna and her friends were tipsy to put it lightly. Everyone was.

"On the farm."

Anna was talking again, but Claire was already walking down the aisle and to the check out.

Jeff had shaved off his mustache. He looked even more like a child. Claire ignored his conversation and avoided eye contact.

She shoved the bags up her arms and pushed out the door. Her chest was suddenly aching. There was no way she wanted to fall apart in public. She needed to get home, and her feet ate the distance as she hurried away.

She splashed her face with cold water and stared at her taunting reflection in the mirror. Her blonde hair was sticking to the water on her face, and she looked a complete mess. The bruise was a nasty black and looked worse in comparison to her pale skin. Her reflection stared back at her with condescending eyes and she had to look away.

Wasn't it enough that she had to endure those looks from the rest of the world? Why did she have to look at herself the same way?

Claire fundamentally knew that she should treat herself with more respect. She deserved to. If she didn't treat herself better, then who would?

Claire tended to be the exception to her own morals.

She also fundamentally knew that depression was irrational. In her case, it was true. Claire couldn't think of a day she felt rational. Depression isolated her from experiences and people. She really felt like she had no friends.

She was an only child, but she could honestly say that didn't bother her. It was easier to run away from the past when there was no one to hold her back but herself.

She didn't mind having no friends. Having friends meant setting herself up to get hurt. She had gone through enough betrayal and pain to last a lifetime. She knew better than to try getting to know people. Everyone thought she was shy and boring, anyway. There wasn't even a family to be there for her.

Claire's expression contorted and her heart clenched.

She still blamed herself for what had happened.

She shook those thoughts away. It was definitely not the time to think about that right now.

The orange bottle of antidepressants rumbled as she snatched it up and dry-swallowed a dose.

She roughly dried her face and left on the towel from her shower twisted in her hair. On her way through the living room, she refilled the fireplace so the house would bake.

Back in her bedroom across the house, she tossed the towel on the floor and went over to her closet. She never gave much thought about what she was wearing, as long as it was long-sleeved and kept her warm.

In flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, she threw herself onto the bed and buried her face into a pillow. Her body shook with silent sobs, but the tears did not fall. It was as if her body was no longer capable of crying correctly. Her eyes welled up, but the tears never fell, and they disappeared just as quickly as they came. All she was left with was violent wracking; a pretty uncomfortable feeling, to cry without tears, but she was getting used to it.

Claire was a broken branch graphed onto unfitting trees. Ever since she was a child, she was a mixed drink of one part left alone, and two parts tragedy. She was raised with a personality made up of tests and pills, and she lived like the up-hills were mountains and the downhills were cliffs. She was consumed in tidal waves of antidepressants, and went through an awkward adolescence filled with the stares of other kids who just knew she was different.

A deep feeling in her grew to be painful as she remembered those times. High school was awful. She swore she was never meant to make it past those years —a belief she still secretly held to be true. Those were tough yearsz, some of the worst.

As a senior, she tried to kill herself when a kid who still had his mom and dad had the audacity to tell her to get over it.

Her nails dug into her palm. The memory made her seethe.

As if depression was something that could be remedied by any of the contents found in a first aid kit. Of course, no one at school knew what she'd been through and had gone through at the time. No one could be trusted. They were all shallow and filled with the bullshit understanding that everyone was that way. Those were the people who went home to families. Whose problems consisted of boys and fashion and curfews.

All Claire remained, was a conversation piece between people who couldn't understand that sometimes being obsessed with pills had less to do with addiction, and more to do with sanity.

Every time she walked into a class, she would look around and wonder that if a kid broke in a school and no one around chose to hear, did they make a sound? Were they just the background noise of a soundtrack stuck on repeat when people said things like, kids can be cruel?

After being transferred from school to school, moving around the country, Claire realized that every school was a big top circus tent and the pecking order. She was a freak. An oddity. Juggling depression and loneliness, playing solitaire, spin the bottle, trying to kiss the wounded parts of herself and heal. But during those nights, while the rest of the world sleep, she would keep walking the tightrope. It was practice, and was always on the verge of falling.

To this day, she was still a stick of TNT lit from both ends. She could describe in detail the way the sky bent in the moments before it was about to fall. She built a cast around herself over the years. How else could she still be here?

There were no other rational reasons for her to come up with.

Claire first joked in her sessions with Dr. Trent that she had a black belt in the martial arts discipline of emotionally retarded. Talking about her problems felt so bland and unimportant. So she knew she was not alone in being in pain. She was not the only one with problems, and her problems were not unique.

In therapy, Claire had made a personal promise that every time in the moment before she was about to speak, she would remind herself to shut up and say something else.

Claire sat up and rubbed her sore eyes.

To this day, Claire knew full well she would never be perfect. On a long enough timeline, everyone failed. Success was not immortal.

What Claire felt was not about the loss of success. Success was not her goal. The only goal she had, was not feeling worthless. That was possible, it had to be. So many other people felt worthy of life. She had to.

Time spent in isolation taught her too much. She was able to observe her past, present, and the lived off of the people around her. She was void of personal attachments. She had no pride, no possessions. It was raw observation for the sake of developing, of growing into something more than she'd ever been before. Being alone was about accepting. It was not about understanding. It was not about getting answers. All she needed was closure, and that was a different thing than getting answers.

It was about…she didn't even know what it was about. All of the tragedies happened to her because they—her neighbors, doctors, friends—believed she had drawn the short stick in life. So how could that not be her fault? She must have done something to make them all do this to her… right?

There were mountains stacked for her blame that piled in and on her. She was mentally sick, and immensely so. It was in the same way that a person hoarded materialistic things in their home, beyond the point where it is unsanitary. Yet, those people could not stop packing more in. Everyone from the outside assumed those people were pathetic and stupid. Just throw it away.

It was the same concept mentally. Claire had held on to so much from her past that it made her sick. The illness was dreadful. Terminal. It was more than being able to let go at this point. Her walls were moldy from tears. Her rock bottoms were war trenches. The best parts were stained with dust.

She was ready to collapse.

Try and get help as she might, nothing was going to change in her. She knew it.

Claire had moved dozens of times in her life. There was no such thing as home. Mineral Town was a last hope. She was ready to give up, to be done with the stress of being around. Mineral Town was meant to be more.

It was supposed to be her near-life experience.

It wasn't the locations that made her low. Claire carried everything with her that it made every place the same. She had figured that out one day as she watered her crops, staring into the burning sun that left spots in her vision for hours.

She could run from others, but she could never run from herself.

And she hated that.

She hated herself. Self-hatred was branded in her eyelids. There was comfort in her self-loathing because it was familiar. It was all she knew. Claire wholeheartedly felt she deserved to be treated poorly because she did nothing to earn better. Being ugly, insignificant, and useless was much easier to be than having a sense of worth. Anything.

She deserved nothing.

The hatred never branched out to more than herself. Others were not to blame for her feelings and unpleasant situation. It was her fault. There was a reason these things happened to her. Even with Elli, Claire could easily point all the fingers at herself. If she was more sociable, happier, prettier, she could be a better friend to Elli. She could be what she needed. Claire could be so much better.

Her chest heaved erratically. This was all too much for one sitting. This was a low. This was a definite low.

Isolation taught Claire about forgiveness. A doctor had once asked her if she could forgive. Claire scoffed—of course she could. She forgave people easily. They deserved forgiveness. When he then asked is she could forgive herself, she brushed him off.

She was the exception.

The question had made no sense at the time. What did she have to forgive herself for? There was nothing to forgive.

Time led her down a road that ran in loops through his words. Situations came up all around her where forgiveness was needed. Only when she was beating herself up again for the hundredth time did the impact of his words hit her.

She forgave people. She truly did. That forgiveness did not come with forgetting, though. It wasn't even a true form of forgiveness. It took years of analyzing her state of being to see that in forgiving others, she was shifting the blame to herself. All of the hatred was pointed to herself. She took the guilt, the responsibility, and shamed herself for it. There was never any letting go, only shifts in the playing field.

Claire did not know how to forgive herself.

The way she learned to stop it from happening at all was to not trust people. To never let them close enough to hurt her. She could be an enigma, a shape-shifter in each crowd. Filled the crevices they needed. Not an individual, just a background character.

She'd been doing it for years. The solitude and lack of opportunity to reveal her true colors to anyone made for some serious damage. Nothing was fixed. She was a blistered mess of seeping infection that was never able to dry and heal.

Being alone had been easy. Now, it was killing her. A slow death she inflicted upon herself.

She's done this. She refused to trust, to open, and to accept opportunities. The past blinded her future.

Strange how all this time she was avoiding the urge to succumb to her self-inflicted end, but all along, had been stepping right in it.

Maybe…

Maybe that was her fate.

Claire dropped her hands and clutched her rough knees. It wouldn't be that hard to get it all over with. Her impure mind had constructed a few very legitimate ways to go about it.

She stared at the small drawer in the nightstand, almost as if she could see through it with her imaginary ex-ray vision. That particular drawer held her pills. The pills.

Maybe they were enough…

Claire opened the drawer and picked up the orange colored container. She leaned back against the headboard, and stared at the container as she played with it in her hand. She knew what kind of relief one single pill gave her, maybe it would be enough to end it all if she took them all?

Was it worth a try?

Wind scratched the house and the muffled echoes filled the room. Her eyes didn't move away from the container.

Her life and death was in that container. She was still holding on to it as if her life depended on it.

And she thought that, in a way, it did.

She removed the lid and shook out the pills in her clammy hand. She counted them silently in her head. There were fifteen of them left. There used to be twenty.

Fifteen should be enough…

She inhaled deeply and breathed out slowly.

Fifteen had to be enough.

She was not taking this crap anymore.

She didn't have any water, and she didn't have the energy to go get some either. So she knew that she had to take the pills slowly, just a couple at the time. She smiled sadly, silently hoping that this would be the last thing she would ever experience. Acceptance. This was her last day on this earth.

Claire raised her hand and was just about to throw three of the pills into her mouth when a sudden noise scared her senseless. She looked at the door on instinct, but she recognized the sound. It wasn't a knock on the door. It was a knock on the… window.

Claire slowly turned her head and saw a very upset Trent staring back at her.

"Swallow those pills and I swear to the Goddess I will kick this window in and stick my arm down your throat and pull them back up myself!" His angry voice was barely muffled by the glass. "Now, go unlock your front door!"

"There's a box by the doghouse for the front," she said, and he nodded once before disappearing out of sight. He didn't need her to elaborate.

Claire strained her ears as she tried to hear him get into the house. But there was no sound whatsoever. She frowned as she wondered if he had changed his mind and maybe gone home.

"Open the door…"

His voice was barely audible and it was behind her bedroom door. She looked at it in surprise, before she finally got her senses together and made her way over, clicking and opening it.

He gave her a curious look as she walked back to the bed. He closed the door behind him and clicked the lock back on. He gave her a crooked smile as he noticed her looking.

"You seem paranoid," he mused. "Locking the windows and the doors like this." He glanced at the pills that were now spread out on the bed. "I guess you didn't want to get interrupted."

"What do you want, Trent?" she asked with a tired sigh to mask the embarrassment of being caught as she collected the pills and put them back in their container.

He plopped down on the bed and leaned back casually against the headboard as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be there. He almost looked comfortable. She put the container back in the drawer before sitting down on the bed. She was careful to keep her distance.

"So, Claire, what brought you over the edge tonight?" he asked, clasping his hands in his lap. "Why tonight? Why not years ago? Why not this afternoon? Why now?" He sounded so clinical when he spoke, a true doctor asking his patient where she was hurting.

She looked up at him, feeling defeated. His gaze was hard, but the cold melted away almost instantly as he met her gaze. Her desolation had been plain on her face. "C'mon, Claire, what the heck?" he almost groaned as he leaned his head back against the wood.

She fumbled with her hands in the silence.

"Trust, remember? I have your back…"

She smiled sadly at him. She wanted to believe him so badly, but she was so unsure. How could she trust him?

Did it matter? He was there. Somehow, he was there.

"I don't know how to stop going down the rabbit holes," she replied honestly. He smirked and chuckled as he shook his head.

"There is always more to some people than we originally think," he took off his black coat and dug in the pockets, suddenly drawn to it as if he had just found that particular thing out, the answers inside of the material. "All people aren't shallow pools, like Karen or Zack or anyone else in this forgotten town."

"And some of us have lived in a bubble. A bubble made of titanium or something," Claire looked him over. "You never had a reason to see past the looks of people; you never needed to really get to know anyone. People love you."

"Some things wouldn't have happened if some people had some backup." She met his intense black eyes. There was so much conflict in there. He had so much to figure out about her, and he had no idea where to start.

"And by some people, you mean me," Claire sighed. He gazed back at her for a long moment before answering.

"That's exactly what I mean."

When he realized she wasn't going to look back up at him, his attention was back in his pockets, searching.

The familiar sound of capsules against plastic shaking brought her gaze back to him. In his grip was a new bottle of medication.

"I was going to give these to you tonight because I thought you needed a refill," Trent put them back in his coat. "Turns out you've been keeping secrets, though."

"It's not…"

"Claire, I give you these pills under the assumption that you take them to get better. That you have intentions on getting better. And you…"

He swallowed a lump in his throat and rubbed the stubble on his face, pinching his lips and clearing his throat.

When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and almost pleading. "Claire, I'm serious. I swear to all that is holy that I will have to report to the authorities about your plans if you don't…" He trailed off, giving her a pointed look.

"If I don't what?" she croaked.

"You will not kill yourself. It's as simple as that. There's no if in that equation," he whispered.

Claire finally felt the hatred she wanted to feel for him. He was standing in the way of her only way out. He wasn't going to let her die, even though he had no reason to stop her.

He knew he was torturing Claire by threatening to tell the authorities about her plans. He knew he would get her in serious trouble. He knew.

"Trent…" she pleaded, but he just shook his head.

"I don't know why in the world you had these plans tonight, and I honestly don't doubt for a second that you will actually go through with them. But if you killed yourself, it would be as if I did it myself…since I knew about it, unknowingly supplied you, and let you go through with it anyway…you make me responsible because I could have prevented it. Is that fair? Making me a killer just because you think your life sucks?"

In a weird and twisted way, his words made sense. Of course, that made her hate him even more.

How could she put him in that position? It was wrong. It was beyond wrong. It was…horrible.

"Trust is something you earn," she whispered in return. A flash of recognition lit up in his eyes. He knew exactly what she meant by that; it was a doctor to patient thing that had built up in all of their sessions.

Claire shook her head, and he finally realized he was gripping her chin. He let go of her and sat down on the edge of the bed instead.

"Damn it, Claire, what do you want from me?"

"Nothing. I want nothing from you."

"Well, there is something I want from you… and that is that you keep on breathing. Is that too much to ask for?" His voice rose in frustration, and she glanced passed him at the door.

She turned her eyes back to the doctor and gave him a sad smile.

"I can't live just for you, Trent," she sighed.

She could almost see the waves of anger that rolled off of him.

Trust may be something earned, but Claire had pushed it too far by giving him too much. He knew about her plans.

How could she tell him? It didn't matter if she wanted him to trust her, so she could trust him, or whatever. Trust wasn't the issue here. Telling someone else about her plans to kill herself had nothing to do with trust. When she finally kicked the bucket, he would always have to live with the fact that he had known about her plans, indirectly making him a killer by letting her go through with it.

"Can you please leave?"

Trent ruffled his dark, messy hair and his face contorted. "I can't do that. You can't be trusted alone for a while now. We need to schedule another appointment sooner than we originally thought."

Claire's dry sobs were coming back, "Just leave!"

"I can't, I already told you–"

"Elli needs you, someone else needs you. Go away!"

"Elli would have me by the throat for a lifetime if I left you in this condition. You either come with me, or I'm staying."

Claire's shoulders collapsed, her neck bent forward, "I don't want to go anywhere."

He waited for a minute. "Is it Mineral Town that you don't want to be in? Is this where you want to be?"

The sobs wracked through her, and laid down, back to him, curling into herself.

"I'm not trying to force you away. But I need to find out what is working for you. I need to find what will work for you. If you want to stay, I will always be here for you. Elli will be, her family will be. If this isn't what you want, where you want to be, you're not stuck here. We will understand."

Her body shook and no answers came for a long time. He wanted to comfort her in some way, soothe her back or give a hug, but it was strictly not permitted for him to have that sort of physical contact with a patient, no matter how close of a family friend they were.

The silence was awful. It was her heaving that deafened things, and his anguish that made it worse than it had to be. He had sympathy for her that couldn't be expressed properly. He felt so bad for her. Claire was a wonderful person, but she could get lost in herself to the point of no return. He would never admit to anyone how badly those times scared him. How tonight totally shook him.

"I'll sleep on the couch," he eventually spoke.

"What?" Claire protested. "No, that's unnecessary."

He gave her a look and snorted. "Yeah, good luck trying to get me to leave."

"And what about you? Aren't you supposed to be comfortable?" she asked, hugging a pillow tightly to her chest.

"Trust me, Claire, knowing that you're safe in bed is more comfort than you'll ever know. I don't need to worry about myself tonight."

She relaxed in a way that made Trent flinch. It was like she went numb and limp.

His fists scratched his head and he held back a cry of his own.

The silence was killer. It was not wanted and neither were his words, but they were needed.

"You deserve more than you give yourself."

"Yeah, and what exactly do I deserve?" she asked, defeated, but honestly curious because she didn't think she deserved anything.

Trent's anger faded, and Claire guessed he had caught on to her doubt.

"Everything. Whatever you want, you deserve it. So tell me, if you could choose anything in this world to have, what would that be?"

She smiled sadly into the sheets, already knowing what she wanted. There was only one thing. There had always just been one thing. She always thought she would get it someday, but then her life crumbled away before she even grew up, turning her view of the world upside down and making her doubt everything she had ever known. And of course, effectively removing her will to even breathe anymore.

There was only thing.

"I just want to be loved."

He looked at her, not really knowing what he was supposed to say.

She just wanted to be loved. Such an easy concept.

Apparently not easy enough.

What kind of crazy wish was that, anyway? Trent swore for a majority of his life that being loved was one of those fundamental things that everyone got, no matter how horrible or how good they were, but being a doctor had taught him that, that wasn't always the case.

He couldn't blame her for thinking the way she did. Her family and friends from way back in her early years—the little he knew of them—did not show her that she was worth loving in the first place.

He didn't even need to ask her if she meant loved as in loved by family and friends, or loved romantically. Her tone and her situation answered that question for him. She wasn't asking for romantic love. She just wanted to be loved. Period.

He didn't know what to say so the words lingered between them like a thick blanket. She tensed, growing uncomfortable with the silence, too. He sighed and left the bed, even though every fiber of his being told him to just stay.

"I'm sorry, that was stupid," she mumbled. Trent turned his head to glare at her, but she was just looking down at her bed sheets with glossy, vacant eyes.

"What are you apologizing for? Are you apologizing for wanting something that everyone else takes for granted? Are you apologizing for wanting something that you should already have? Don't you dare apologize for something that's not your fault," he snapped.

She looked up, shrugging sheepishly. "Can you blame me?" she asked softly.

"No, I can't. And that's the worst up thing of all," he sighed, running his hands through his hair. "But things are different now. You're blinding yourself to that. We make mistakes, we all do, but when you love someone, their mistakes come with them. Elli's family and I all come with mistakes, but we care deeply for you. You have love, Claire. You are deeply loved."

He watched her intently. Her breathing was jagged and she was sobbing again.

"And someday, someone will love you in deeper and more complex ways than we can give you. You're deserving of that, and your time is well overdue…but it will happen, trust me. Someone out there is desperate for your love, just like you are for theirs."

She rolled on the mattress and shifted her weight to one elbow, looking up at him. He was breathing deeply through his mouth and looking up to avoid tears from falling.

There was nothing she could say. Tonight overwhelmed her, and it certainly pushed Trent overboard. Her emotions were spiked and if they continued to talk, it would get a lot worse before it got better. She couldn't handle another downward spiral for the night. It was going to burn out her mind.

Claire laid back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"There's extra blankets and pillows in the supply closet by the bathroom," she muttered, voice scratchy.

His footsteps echoed on the floorboards, and she heard the door whine open and slowly shut. The sounds of his wandering in the main area were stifled and she drowned them out.

She scolded herself for not doing anything right. She kept pushing people away.

She closed her eyes when she felt them well up with tears that would never fall. She was both physically and mentally exhausted, and it didn't take long for her to fall into a restless slumber.