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Summary
On the days she finds Henry played out on a chaise longue while he breathes in shallow, chemical stutters, unaware of the world around him, of her presence and her deep, childish need to be seen, to be held, to have her hair brushed back from her face and to be given the false promise that everything is okay, everything is going to be okay, she knows it’s all a lie. She stays because she is afraid of what happens when she is no longer needed as a witness to someone else’s suffering, and when no one is left to witness hers. She stays because leaving would require her to admit that this, too, was a choice. That the cold did not sneak up on her. That she walked straight into it and shut the door behind her. That somewhere, in some part of herself, she wants it. She deserves it. It’s the cost of winning. It’s the cost of her being born.
It’s on those nights, already low and pathetic and raw like road burn, that she calls Harper.