HAZEL
The pain lingered in my chest like a brand.
It wasn't sharp anymore. The white-hot agony that had forced me to my knees had faded to a dull, persistent ache. But it wasn't the physical sensation that gutted me. It was everything else.
The air tasted different. Thinner somehow. Like I was breathing through a filter that hadn't been there before. My skin felt wrong. Too tight in some places, too loose in others. I looked down at my hands and they looked the same. Same pale skin. Same carefully manicured nails. But they didn't feel like mine anymore.
Everything was different.
I lifted my gaze and found my mother. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She wasn't crying yet but she was close. Her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone white.
She looked like she was mourning.
Maybe she was.
