"We're going out tonight."

The comment startles me awake—wait, when did I even fall asleep? At the table, yet?

I look to the side, where my elbow is just barely about to knock an untouched piece of pizza onto the floor, and my eyes widen in realization as every moment of last night comes back to me.

My horrible dream; scratch that—my nightmare.

The memories.

Back to school night, that's now only one day away.

And…everything that this means.

She's here. She's here. She's here.

"Did you hear me?"

I don't know what to make of Anna's tone. She's standing by the counter with her arms crossed—after sixteen years I've realized that she only does this whenever she's dead set on getting something done.

"I heard you," I say, pushing the chair back from the table and standing up.

But I don't want to go out. I can't. I won't.

"You're getting out of the house," she insists.

I walk past her to put the untouched pizza in the trash, and the empty plate in the sink.

"Anna—" I start, ready to convince her otherwise.

But then she interrupts me.

She talks over me.

And I think I surprise both of us when I let her.

"Mom, you're getting out of this house, okay? It needs to change. I've been here for almost three days, gave you news that should have made you happy, and you still seem miserable."

That's the last thing I want her to think. Forget about the news she brought—how could I be miserable when my daughter is living with me once more?

But all I can say is, "I'm not miserable."

"You sure look like you are," she argues.

I can't deal with this right now. She means well…but I can't.

"You're going to miss the bus," I say to her after looking at the clock above the pantry door, "We'll discuss this later."

She gives me a look, sighs, and picks her backpack up off the floor, "Think about it. Because you're leaving this house. It's happening."

I know I raised my daughter to be determined in all of her endeavors. But it looks like I'm paying for it now.

Once she's out of the house I sink back down into the chair.

I don't want to go out.

I really, really, don't.

I want to stay here, within the walls of my confinement, where I don't have to face what I know is out there.

She is out there.

But I'm scared. I'm scared, and it's for so many reasons that at the moment, I can't even pinpoint one of them.

I look back to the clock. No more than five minutes has passed since Anna walked out the door.

I don't know what to do with myself.

I can't just sit here and stare at the walls for eight hours until she come back home.

Coffee. Maybe that will help.

I get up and open the cabinet above the sink, but find to my dismay that the only thing left is hot chocolate. And I am not going down that road again.

I walk from the cabinet, to the chair, and back to the cabinet again. I thought I'd gotten rid of this pacing habit, but apparently, that's not the case.

I'm going to go insane if I just stand here and…and worry.

One day.

One day until this 'back to school night'.

I feel tears burning at the corners of my eyes.

I don't want to cry. I don't want to feel this way.

Anna's words fill my mind: news that should have made you happy.

I should be happy that she's here. Happy that I can see her again, but right now…I'm scared. I'm afraid of hurting her more than I already have.

And I don't want to leave this house.

It is in every way my support right now; literally, as I grip the edges of the counter until my knuckles turn white.

I bring one hand to my face, choking back a sob.

I don't want to live this way anymore. I don't want to live my life afraid.

But I don't know how.

In a moment of anger, I slam my fist down on the counter, but all it succeeds in doing is knocking a container over and—

"Dammit!"

The word is out of my mouth before I can hold it back, and I look down to my hand that now has a cut on its side.

I forgot to put the pizza cutter away last night and now I'm paying for that, too.

Thankfully, it's nothing deep. My hand just managed to catch the end of it.

I apologize aloud for letting the curse word slip, although I'm not really sure what good it does because I know she can't hear it.

She can't hear me.

I ignore the pain—it's what I've done for years, so how much different can it be now?—and place the pizza cutter in the sink to avoid any more mishaps. And when that's taken care of, I walk back over to the counter to assess the mess of sugar cookies that are now littering the countertop.

I can no longer even remember the day that I made them as I pick up each one individually and determine which ones are in a decent enough shape to join the ones that have managed to stay in the container. And as I stare at a particularly crumbled one, I can't help but see the similarity between that dismal looking cookie, and my current state of mind.

Wiping the crumbs aside, I clean the rest of the mess. I put the container back in its rightful place, and the broken cookie in my mouth. But I taste nothing.

I feel nothing.

Nothing but fear and worry, tinged with the lingering of none other than regret.

Oh, and the slight stinging on the side of my hand. I know I need to take care of that, even if I did deserve it.

So I head upstairs, knowing that it will at least give me something else to do.

I take my time cleaning the cut and covering it. I take my time methodically putting everything I've used back in the cabinet behind the mirror in my bathroom. I even rearrange a few things, even though it seems that change isn't something that sits too well with me.

Now I have three different shades of blue nail polish on the wrong side of the cabinet, and what I know could very well be the biggest change of my life looming over my head.

It's not a very comforting realization.

I don't know what to do next, so I shut the cabinet door, which leaves me to stare at my own distressed reflection. Because the bathroom is connected to my room, I can see the hallway behind me, and the small area where it spills out into the bedroom. And so instead of looking at myself, my gaze shifts to the white walls, and the various things that adorn them.

There are a few paintings. Pictures. But what I seem to focus on is the bookcase—wooden, standing entirely from floor to ceiling, and filled with titles that I try to read backwards in the mirror. The one that catches my eye is old. It's really old, and worn, and has probably suffered more rain damage than any of my other books, because all I remember is how heavy it was, and how it would never fit in my bag, leaving me to walk to class with it in my hands.

That book was a burden to carry.

Calculus.

That book symbolizes the burden of my life. But…I'm not going to think about that aspect of it.

Besides, I'm good at calculus.

Slowly, I make my way from the bathroom sink to the bookcase. I disturb the pristine order of the books, thick and thin alike, as I pull the textbook from the shelf, causing the ones around it to lean over and onto the others for support.

I flip through the pages; find the section on limits.

The numbers and graphs fill my mind, and I find solace in the fact that although infinity is indefinite, there is still a single, precise answer that can be labeled when this endless entity is considered alongside an equation.

I'm good at calculus.

I can occupy myself with problems that I know I can solve until Anna gets home.

A/n: So I thought it was important, even though the memories are for the most part wrapped up, to spend a little bit of time writing about Anna—as in her daughter Anna, and how all of this is affecting her. The way the last chapter ended she was kind of just…there, if you know what I mean. And I feel like she's a much more important part of the story than that. So the beginning of this chapter (and the next chapter, as I've already begun planning it) are to make up for that :)

Also, the next chapter will pick up right where this one left off. I thought about combining them, but decided against it, even if that meant that this one is on the shorter side. The chapters were all meant to be short anyway. The previous one was an exception :p

Thanks for reading!