CHAPTER TWO

Instead of putting on my uniform, I stood by the window in my oldest t-shirt, holding a mug of tea I didn’t even want. I let the phone ring. I let the quiet stay. No beeping monitors. No final farewells. Just me, and a long-overdue stillness.

That evening, I threw out the pills. All of them. Not because of some grand awakening. Not because I suddenly believed I could live without them. I didn’t.

I just needed to try.

I stood over the trash, hand trembling, watching the bottle disappear beneath last night’s takeout and unopened mail. My chest tightened—not with relief, but with dread.

Because I knew I’d buy more. Maybe in a week. Maybe in three days. I knew myself too well to believe otherwise.

But I wanted to see if I could make it even one night without them—if I could let the grief stay, just long enough to feel like I hadn’t given up on myself completely.

But instead of crawling into bed once more and letting the quiet crush me, I got in the car.

I didn’t plan it. I just grabbed my keys and went—one bag, no explanation. Just this gut-deep pull, this ache for something familiar that wasn’t grief.

My parents’ house is thirty-five minutes away if you ignore the speed limit, forty-five if you’re feeling cautious. I hadn’t made the drive in two years.

Not because they pushed me away, but because I pulled myself out of their orbit the second life got too loud to explain.

When I finally pulled over in their front yard, I sat in the car for a minute longer than I should have, engine off, radio dead. My hands stayed on the wheel like I needed something to hold me steady. I almost backed out. I almost went home.

But I didn’t.

The front door opened before I even knocked.

My mother stood there in her slippers and a faded sweatshirt that said Supermom, the letters nearly peeled off. Her eyes went soft the moment she saw me. Not surprised. Not accusing. Just… grateful.

Like I was someone who’d been lost and finally made it to shore.

“Gabby?”

I nodded, throat tight but smiling. “Hey, Mom.”

She stepped aside. “You hungry?”

That was it. No guilt, no lecture. Just warmth—like breath after too long underwater.

Inside, everything was the same. The faint cinnamon smell. The fridge is humming low. Dad’s old jacket is still hanging by the door, untouched.

I almost cried. Not from sadness, but because it was all so… familiar.

The girls were bundled on the couch, laughing at something dumb on TV. Nadia—thirteen, braces still fresh, spotted me first.

“Holy crap,” she blinked, mouth half-full of popcorn. “Gabby?”

Maya turned around more slowly. No blinking. No surprise. Just that unreadable look only a sixteen-year-old who’s built up walls can wear convincingly.

“You’re here? And your hair’s short.. I love it!” Nadia beamed, already getting up.

I laughed—small, surprised. “That’s how you greet your big sister now?”

Before I finished, Nadia had thrown her arms around me like I’d never been gone. Like two missed birthdays hadn’t happened. I let her hug me. Hugged her back. And this time, I didn’t pull away first.

When we parted, Maya was still on the couch. Legs tucked in, hand on her chin. She looked taller, like her anger had lengthened her.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did.”

She didn’t answer. Just reached for the remote and turned the volume down like I was interrupting something important.

“I don’t care what you do,” she said. “It’s your house too. When you feel like remembering that.”

I didn’t flinch. I didn’t scold her.

She wasn’t being cruel. She was being sixteen. Sixteen with two years’ worth of silence sitting in her chest. Sixteen with a big sister who stopped writing back and stopped coming home.

“I missed you, Maya,” I said quietly.

She stood up then, pulling the blanket off her lap, her jaw tight.

“Yeah,” she muttered, brushing past me on the way to the stairs. “Could’ve fooled me.”

The sound of her door closing wasn’t loud. But it still landed like a punch.

I stood in the living room for a second too long, trying not to crumble.

Nadia nudged my arm. “She’ll come around,” she said, like it was nothing. “Probably.”

I wanted to tell Maya she was right to be angry.

That I hadn’t just left—I’d disappeared.

But how do you explain that your body can still show up in a room while your mind is curled up in a dark corner somewhere else entirely?

I didn’t stop coming home because I stopped caring.

I stopped coming because I cared too much.

And I was ashamed of what I became when I couldn’t carry it anymore.

They don’t know about the pills.

Or how many nights I sat on the floor of my bathroom with my back against the tub, too numb to cry, too high to sleep.

I didn’t come home because I didn’t want to lie to their faces.

Didn’t want to sit at the dinner table and pretend I wasn’t unraveling.

I was high on Nadia’s birthday.

Hungover on Christmas Eve.

And I missed Maya’s first heartbreak — not because I didn’t care, but because I couldn’t trust myself to be the kind of sister she remembered.

I thought staying away would protect them.

But maybe all it did was leave them wondering what they did wrong.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

I wandered into the living room just as Dad came through the front door. He froze when he saw me, keys still in his hand.

I hadn’t seen him in two years.

“You lost weight,” he said after a pause, like he was afraid to scare me off.

Then, softer, “But your eyes… they still look like your mother’s.”

That undid me.

I fell into his arms, and we both cried. No speeches. No blame. Just the quiet collapse of two people who had missed each other too long.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“I missed you every day,” he said.

I couldn’t speak. Just held on tighter.

When I looked up, my sisters were on the stairs.

Nadia had tears in her eyes, her hand to her mouth. But Maya—Maya stood still, stiff, blinking fast.

We locked eyes.

She walked toward me, slow and unsure. For a second, I thought she might turn away.

But she didn’t.

She sat beside me and lay her head on my shoulder.

Then she cried too.

Not loud. Not messy.

Just soft, aching sobs — the kind that say I missed you without a single word.

I pulled her close. One arm around her. One around Nadia, who’d crept over and leaned against my other side.

No one spoke.

We didn’t have to.

For the first time in a long time, I felt at home.

Not forgiven. Not fixed.

Just here.

And maybe, for now, that was enough.