Selfish Appetite [5 Seconds of Summer]

[51]

"In the quiet after." 

- - 

Sloan spends the rest of the day feeling like she's underwater. The texts pinging from her phone had stopped, making her wonder if Alice had told her friends of her whereabouts. She's the only one who knows, after all. 

On one hand she is grateful to Alice for saving her a conversation, on the other hand she didn't like having her grandma do her bidding for her. 

She has a responsibility of being honest and open with her friends, and she ignored it. It's not like they would have tried to stop her, in fact, Sloan knows they would be supportive of her choice. 

They all know she has a rocky relationship with her hometown, it's just that everyone besides Michael, Ally and Mina don't know why. 

A strange hammer attacks her heart each time she thinks about it, but she can't focus on it too much. Not after the journals. 

In her hands, Sloan had held the last words her mother ever wrote.

In her hands, she cradled her mother's memories and most intimate thoughts.
She entered her mother's mind, witnessing her eventual defeat in a battle she fought for her entire adult life.

Endless pages of Anna's hurried handwriting, chronicling each painstaking day.

In that moment, Sloan wishes she never opened these notebooks.

Back then, as a child, she could understand only so much of her mother's struggle with mental illness. But now, at almost thirty, with a Psychology degree, the words cut into her like a blade.

She drifts around the house, like a lingering ghost with unfinished business.

She packs the things Alice requested: her father's books and some family photos. She also packs the stack of letters she found in the attic—letters exchanged between her parents—because she's not ready to read them yet.

She places her mother's clothes in her bag without trying them on, unsure if they'll fit. She grabs everything she can think of.

Lastly, with considerable hesitation, she carefully places the three notebooks in her bag to take with her back to New York.

She tells herself she'll never read them again, but something in her insists on keeping them close.

When night falls, the temperature drops, and Sloan curls under a heavy duvet by the fireplace. The cold mountain air sneaks through the cracks in the house, making her smile faintly.
Her father used to love the smell of pinewood.

The scent of winter enveloped the house, a reminder of the harsh season outside, while they somehow stayed warm, basking in its icy beauty.

She pokes the fire, feeling the warmth flush her cheeks.

By now, the reality of her mother's journals has settled inside her, a mixture of grief and bittersweet exhilaration at having glimpsed into her mother's troubled life.

She finds a sense of closure in reading Anna's hopes for her—a gift she never thought she'd receive after her mother passed.

Sloan wishes she could tell her mother not to worry. Her father took wonderful care of her, and he would have kept doing so if his heart hadn't failed him.

*

Three hours away, in New York City, Michael sits at their usual booth, waiting for Ashton to bring their shots. Ally and Mina giggle at something goofy on Mina's phone, while Calum stares absently at the TV screen.