Chapter 11: The Fog Lifts

On the fourth morning without the capsules, I woke up before the alarm and knew exactly where I was.

I knew it was Monday.

I knew the ceiling crack above Devin's bed, and the green mug on the nightstand, and the smell of the coffee he had left me.

I knew that Devin had gone out for groceries after his night shift, because his coat was gone from the hook.

I did not need the notepad.

I reached for it anyway, and flipped back through four days of Devin's careful notes.

Day one: headache, shaky hands. Day two: pulse 88, nauseous in the evening. Day three: slept ten hours, woke up angry.

Under that, in my own writing: Clearer.

I sat up, with the blanket around my shoulders.

Something was shifting in my head, slowly.

I thought about the man at our dinner table, the one who had asked about school.

I had known him my whole life.

His name came back, quietly and all at once, along with the name of the boy in my history class, and the street where my aunt lived.

I wrote all three on the page, my hand shaking.

Then I put the pen down, because a different memory was coming up behind them, and it was not quiet.

I was sixteen.

It was my birthday, late at night, and my father had gone to bed.

I had come down to the kitchen for water, and my mother was standing at the counter in her robe with her back to me.

She did not hear me on the stairs.

She was holding a white tablet in a spoon, and she was crushing it with the back of another spoon.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Never Loved Me. Now I Don't Remember Them. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.