Page 129 of Anything But Lonely

But then it registers that it wasn’t a bad dream.

She’s not in the next room.

She’s not waiting for me to come visit.

She’s not going to open her eyes and tell me I’m worrying too much.

She’s gone.

Something woke me up this morning, but I can’t bring myself to care.

Maybe it was the sound of a car outside. Maybe it was a notification on my phone. Maybe it was just my own body reminding me that I was still here.

I don’t know.

I don’t want to get up and check.

I don’t even want to open my eyes because that feels like admitting the truth all over again.

My mom has been gone for months, and somehow the pain doesn’t get smaller.

It just changes.

It settles deeper.

I don’t know how people survive losing someone who was such a part of them. I don’t know how people wake up every day and accept that the person they love most in the world is just… Gone.

What scares me is how easy it would be to stop fighting it.

To let the grief swallow me whole.

Because at least in that darkness, I don’t have to remember. At least there, I can pretend she’s still alive.

I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to live.

The thought should be a wake-up call, a cry for help, a warning for what’ll happen if I let myself stay here.

I just need another minute.

Another minute where I get to have my mom back.

And that’s the last thought I have before I let myself drift back to sleep.

I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if I’m awake.

Maybe I’m somewhere in between.

A strange, endless space where time doesn’t move the way it’s supposed to, and my body feels like it belongs to someone else.

It’s like I’m underwater, suspended in the middle of the pressure instead of feeling it crushing down on me. Everything is distant. Muffled.

There’s nothing except the faint ache of thirst scratching at the back of my throat and the hollow pain twisting in my stomach.

I think it’s been a few hours.

Maybe a day or two.

Maybe longer.