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I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, the shadows and lights flashing across the sy tome down like cinder blocks on my chest All I wanted to do was shutthere, a blank canvas White noise

I closed ainst the not just physically but this bone-deep exhaustion that I’d accepted would never go away The stress of not having a job, worrying about theradio silent, had e that I wondered if a person could die from stress alone

I toldout to Scotland to find her, to make sure she was okay Maybe it was drastic, definitely irrational, but she was my family, sister by choice, and she was across a vast ocean all alone with no help to find her way back

It was those thoughts running through ht on repeat when my cell phone vibrated My heart shot into rabbed it The pure relief I felt when I saw Darragh’s naoofy picture I’d taken where she was sticking her tongue out at me because I’d told her she was shit-faced, slammed so hard into me I felt even weaker

I answered the call and let out an exhale as we spoke, and as I listened to her tell me about the crazy adventure she’d had over the last few days and why she’d been radio silent, how she’d found information on her father, I cried for how happy I was at that news She’d gotten so out of her trip, a piece of information about the family she desperately wanted to find

She told s were crazy, and she’d tell me all about it later

And it was as I listened to her and heard the true happiness in her voice that I knew one thing so fiercely, so intensely that every part of me became painful

I’d been latching onto our friendship like a lifeline, and with Darragh clearly starting this incredible journey with the —for the better, I told myself—it was time I did what I had to in order to pave my oay

I’d start living the life I’d alanted Today

I hadn’t been able to go back to sleep after getting off the phone with Darragh, and so I lay there just going over the choices I’d ed what I’d do today, how I’d start things off on the right foot I felt this hope incaution to the wind and just doing me

I was pu todifferent It was like co to that realization—an epiphany—that all my worries over her safety, over my choices were settled But I couldn’t help but re in the back of my mind as I listened to her speak She’d been pretty thin with details, clearly hiding things from me, and as s in her own time and in her oay

I , to pick up some applications at the fancier restaurants and stay away fro up stories in my head about who they were and what their lives were all about

Then after that, I’d spend a couple of hours looking at courses at an online college, writing down all the classes I wanted to take, getting , Fuck it, to ht into all of this

And then I’d look at different countries to travel to, all the history to be learned The catacombs in Paris, Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, the pyraypt

Yeah, it all sounded perfect in my head

I crawled out of bed before the sun was even fully out for the day, and showered I shuffled into the kitchen, the silence that filledfor the first time in… ever I stared out the s a direct view into theright across the way, a check cashing place that was dark except for the sn above the door