you can hear it in the silence

chapter one

**tw**
mention of death, cancer and anxiety
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Present time
First day of college

Adare ༉‧₊˚✧.*

It's the first day of college. It's the first day of college.
That statement still doesn't seem to click in my head.

No way I'm starting college right now.

I'm starting college and my mom is dead.
My mom isn't here for me to call and tell her about every little detail of my first day of college.

My mom passed from cancer when I was a sophomore in high school.

People always talk about death as something that time heals, but I want to know who the hell ever decided that time heals all. Because it doesn't.
If anything, it get harder as time goes on.

With every minute, day, week, month and year that passes, more and more things pass in my life that my mom was supposed to be here for.

My homecoming, my first date, my first kiss, my prom, my graduation, starting college.
She's not here for any of it.

And the pain doesn't lessen each passing moment.
It sticks here, clung onto the walls of my mind and body, sitting there, waiting, for another milestone to cross, when I'm supposed to be happy, and then tears me down.
Flooding my eyes and fogging my brain.

It's like a shadow that sits on top of my head, that follows me around.
And I know it's there, I can feel it.

But I can't ever truly remember how bad it hurts until something happens in my life, yet another accomplishment that I have to truly feel her emptiness.
She's not here anymore.

I make it onto campus and I'm a nervous wreak.

My legs feel numb as they carry me to my first building.
I think I would probably be equally as nervous if I didn't have raging anxiety, but it definitely doesn't help the situation.

I first noticed my anxiety when my mom was first diagnosed. In the very early stages of finding out she has cancer.
Part of me thinks that if they would have just outright said, "listen- she's got it bad," it would have probably helped me.

It was the unknown.
It was the fear.
It was the hope.

Stupid fucking hope that came with every test, blood work and doctor appointment when they were trying to find if she actually did have cancer.

That little tiny glimmer of hope in the back of your head that's saying, "they've got it wrong, she's just fine- and here are the tests to prove it."

But that never came.

Instead we waited, and waited, and then waited some more.

Waiting to verify if she had cancer.
Waiting to see what kind of cancer.
Waiting to see treatment options.
Waiting to see how long she has left.

I had my first panic attack waiting in the hospital while me and my dad held my moms hand while the doctors were studying the scan.

After we found out I threw up for days.

The panic attacks never really stopped, either.
The year an a half I had to watch my mom actually wither away in front of me, I had a panic attack pretty much on an every other day basis.

Give or take.

Some were worse than others. Some were manageable.
As manageable as a panic attack can be.