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The Time of Your Life

I got back from lunch to find they’d cleaned out my roo to Addington Hospital, EMBER LEFERRIER had already left the building

And I would be on e that I’d slept in this narrowaround, I could already feel ton I’d never been me here I’d been a restoration project, and noas done

Earlier this ht months into two brown cardboard boxes that were now in the lobby, ready to load into my parents’ car I’d rechecked under the bed, in the cupboard, inside each desk drawer

Yep I was finished I was gone

Maybe I needed a final gesture A secret note for the next broken person Should I use a file to scrape my initials EGL into the sill? Or I could carve out soe Green Day: “I hope you had the time of your life”

Or…was that just mean?

Skip it Mean was the last thing I felt

Fragile Freezing Lonely I felt crudely refashioned, like a Frankenstein host

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You’re Always Embie

But the terror didn’t hit me until I buckled in My parents had driven up in their new Prius—a different car, of course, from the fao, but I’d never seen it

Now they were taking me home in it

On the hospital’s front steps, I hugged Summer and Gab, lare of October sunlight He fit his arot my email, my cell”—shook hands with Dad, and kissed my mother on the cheek

Then he whispered so kind and supportive, probably I couldn’t hear what, but I saw her eyes fill I wanted to do so, too Squeeze her hand, tell her I was okay But it felt more important to be still, to show calm I’d had so many meltdowns, there had been so e, then I wouldn’t tip over

And noere off

Itto the radio Or my mom’s twist-arounds to check that all of my needs had been met

“Are you cold, honey? Or maybe it’s stuffy, a teeny bit hot in here? Would you like so on, I have a bottle” Mom always had deep concerns about hydration

Or it could have been that final turn out of Addington’s harp-shaped iron gates