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I just know he left me
13
WELCOME TO MY skull
A truck is rolling over the bones of my neck and head The vertebrae break, the brains pop and ooze A thousand flashlights shine in my eyes The world tilts
I throw up I black out
This happens all the ti but an ordinary day
The pain started six weeks after my accident Nobody was certain whether the tere related, but there was no denying the voeneral horror
Mummy took me for MRIs and CT scans Needles, machines More needles, itis, you na and that drug and another drug, because the first one didn’t work and the second one didn’t work, either They gaverong Just trying to quell the pain
Cadence, said the doctors, don’t take too much
Cadence, said the doctors, watch for signs of addiction
And still, Cadence, be sure to take your meds
There were so many appointments I can’t even renosis Cadence Sinclair Eastraine headaches caused by traumatic brain injury
I’ll be fine, they tell me
I won’t die
It’ll just hurt a lot
14
AFTER A YEAR in Colorado, Dad wanted to seeme to Italy, France, Ger in o to Beechwood at all, summer sixteen
“The trip is grand tihtly as she packed my suitcase
“Why?” I lay on the floor of my bedroom and let her do the work My head hurt
“Granddad’s redoing Clairmont” She rolled socks into balls “I told you that a million times already”
I didn’t remember “How come?”
“So the summer in Windemere”
“With you waiting on him?”
Mummy nodded “He can’t stay with Bess or Carrie And you know he takes looking after Anyway You’ll get a wonderful education in Europe”
“I’d rather go to Beechwood”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, firm
IN EUROPE, I vomited into small buckets and brushed my teeth repeatedly with chalky British toothpaste I lay prone on the bathroo the cold tile underneathMigraines lefton the floors, oozing into carpets, soaking through leftover croissants and Italian lace cookies
I could hear Dad calling me, but I never answered until my medicine took effect
I missed the Liars that summer
We never kept in touch over the school year Not er We’d text, or tag each other in summer photos, especially in September, but we’d inevitably fade out after a ic never carried over into our everyday lives We didn’t want to hear about school friends and clubs and sports teams Instead, we knew our affection would reviveone another on the dock the following June, salt spray in the air, pale sun glinting off the water