ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

23. 𝙎𝙒𝙊𝙊𝙉

023, 𝙎𝙒𝙊𝙊𝙉

.⋆𐙚 🍒

I USED TO FLINCH WHEN MY PHONE WOULD RING. 

Back then, it didn't matter if the number was blocker or familiar—I still felt my chest cave in, still stared at my screen like it might detonate. Even now, after everything, sometimes I still hesitate when I get a notification. My body tightens before my brain can catch up, like there's a part of me that still believes the worst is always waiting on the other end. I've deleted her contact more times than I can count. After the countless fights. Once in a daze after she missed my birthday again. Again last May when I was back home in New York for the summer visiting an old friend, and I agreed to meet her. I genuinely thought for a second that she might actually apologize—that she might have changed.

She hadn't. 

I wasn't surprised. I've trained myself not to be. But sometimes I wonder if she'd recognize me now. If she'd hate who I've become, of it she'd hate me more for what I didn't become.

Somedays I almost miss the version of me that used to try. The girl who measured her worth in gold stars and rare song songs of praise from her mother. Who memorized the sound of her mother's heels on the tile so she'd know when to smile or stay silent. Who handed over her softness piece by piece and called it survival. 

I don't miss that girl, but I mourn her. 

I think about how early she learned that love could mean rules and ridicule, that being chose was never unconditional.

I still hear my mother's voice sometimes—clinical, exacting, always cutting too close to the bone. 

"You're overreacting, y/n."

"Fix your face. No one wants to see you crying."

"If you worked harder—"

Always if. Always a clause. Always a condition. 

I've spend years trying to scrape her voice out of my head, but it still shows up when I'm alone, when I'm tired, when someone brings her up in a conversation and I pretend not to hear it. 

I don't want her back in my life. But God, I wish I didn't carry the parts of her that never asked to stay.

Our apartment smells faintly of Hitch's jasmine scented shampoo—clean and quiet. I step out of my room, pulling my sleeves down past my wrists. The soft cotton clings to my skin, still warm from the dryer. I'm wearing a cropped dark red hoodie, one I've worn threadbare at the cuffs, with a pair of low-slung charcoal grey jeans that sit loose on my hips. There's a small reddish stain from when the Maraschino cherry on my milkshake fell onto my thigh two weeks ago during dinner with Hitch at the Grill. I tried to get it out, but it wouldn't leave. 

I'd pulled the pants on without realizing it was still there, though it was barely noticeable and I couldn't be bothered to change 

I find Hitch crouched in front of the fridge with the door hanging open, her legs beginning to wobble slightly as the bright light illuminates her face. Her short blonde hair is scraped up in a messy bun, held in place by one of my pens she stole all the way back in high school. She's wearing one of Marlo's hoodies, the neckline stretched out from too many nights of pulling it over her head in a rush. On the coffee table, her laptop is open beside a textbook full of bent corners and highlights. Her notebook's flipped open to a page that looks more ink than paper. Probably something for her sociology course. Probably due tomorrow. 

"You're going to get hypothermia," I murmur, pulling a protein bar out of one of the cupboards.

She startles, then throws me a grin over her shoulder. "Oh, you're alive."