First Day Back. Regrets.

THIS POST CONTAINS AUDIO TEST

Monday, April 27th

Monday morning didn’t feel like a return to campus; it felt like the slow, heavy march toward a public execution. Nurse Evelyn’s hands were as clinical as ever during our morning routine, the sharp crackle of plastic and the cold, stinging wipe of antiseptic around my surgical pins providing a brutal wake-up call before the sun had even cleared the horizon. By the time she finished adjusting my collection lines and easing me into a fresh garment, my skin was slick with cold sweat. Sara had already shoved my textbooks and laptop into her own bulging, overflowing backpack; my towering walker couldn't handle a single ounce of extra weight without the front-heavy leverage throwing off my balance. Together, we finally headed out into the hallway.

The real disaster struck the moment the elevator doors opened onto the quad. The university disability cart was waiting by the curb right on schedule, but as the driver watched me lunge forward on the aluminum frame, the entire plan instantly fell apart. Because the massive silver fixator held my shattered pelvis in a rigid cage, I couldn't bend at the waist or lift my left leg even a fraction of an inch to reach the bench.

"I have to go back to the maintenance shed and unscrew the rear backrest," the driver muttered, shifting his cap nervously. "It’s going to take ten, maybe fifteen minutes."

My stomach plummeted as the quad came alive with students rushing toward their 8:00 AM lectures. "Sara, go," I urged, my voice tight with a familiar anxiety. "You have my notebooks. If you stay, you’re going to miss the opening physics lecture, and I’m not letting you tank your attendance because of me."

"Illy, I'm not leaving you alone out here," she argued, but I gave her a hard, stubborn look, gesturing toward the path with the three free fingers protruding from my blue fiberglass arm cast.

"Go. Seriously. I'll be fine."

Reluctantly, she turned and sprinted off, leaving me completely stranded. Standing there on the concrete walkway, clutching the rubber grips of the walker while my left arm rested uselessly in the padded trough, I felt like an absolute freak show. Without Sara acting as my human shield, I was just a stationary target. Dozens of passing students openly gaped at the industrial silver scaffolding jutting out from my modified shorts and the clear silicone tube snaking down into the plastic bag. I stared fixedly at a crack in the pavement, my face burning with a toxic heat, wishing the ground would just open up.

When the golf cart finally rattled back, it was a public spectacle from hell. The driver had completely removed the center backrest, turning the entire rear section into a flat, open-air bed. Getting me onto it was a clumsy, exhausting ordeal. Since I couldn't pivot or bend, the driver—a total stranger—had to manually scoop me up by my good leg and waist, guiding my rigid, unbending frame onto the vinyl cushions while a small crowd of onlookers watched from the path.

"Watch your clearance," the driver grunted, kneeling by the bumper to inspect my hips and make sure the hardware would clear the hard plastic trim of the vehicle frame.

The second he laid me flat on my back, a wave of pure panic hit. The seats weren't a seamless mattress; there was a deep, hard gap between the cushions right where my pulverized hip was resting. Because of the metal cage, I couldn't let my pelvis sink into that void or hit the hard edges, or the sudden blunt force would tear the pins straight through my weak bone. I had to violently tense my core, using every ounce of strength in my good right leg to keep my frame braced and slightly hovering over the divide. It was a brutal, grueling workout just to keep from smashing against the hardware.

As the cart hit the gas, the electric motor whined loudly, and the entire campus blurred overhead. I clamped my eyes shut, blocking out the blue sky and the brick buildings entirely. Lying flat on my back, I was lower than everyone else’s eye level—a horizontal shape being carted across the concrete while hundreds of students looked down at me, the thick waistband of my medical diaper, and the sloshing collection bag. I kept my eyes closed for the entire ride, focusing on the bone-rattling jolts of the pavement, just trying to survive the distance to the engineering building.

The only saving grace of being twenty minutes late was that the main hallway was completely dead. Only a couple of students lingered near the vending machines, staring as I dragged my heavy aluminum walker across the linoleum. Every step was a slow, agonizing shuffle, but at least I didn't have to navigate through a crowded corridor. Then I reached the heavy double doors of the lecture hall.

I shoved the wood open with the rubber bumper of my frame and took a lurching step inside. The rubber feet squeaked violently against the floor, and the metal rings around my hip clanked loudly against the aluminum. The professor stopped mid-sentence. The entire room went dead silent.

I froze, instantly realizing how incredibly bad this layout was. The doors opened directly at the front of the room, right next to the podium. The tiered seating sloped steeply upward, forming a massive amphitheater. A wall of hundreds of students were now looking directly down at me.

The professor, a sweet older guy in a cardigan, set his chalk down. The expression on his face made my stomach twist into a sickening knot. It was pure, unfiltered horror. He wasn't disgusted by me, but looking at me standing there—the bulky waistband peeking over my pink shorts, the brutal metal cage bolted into my side, the clear tubing snaking down my leg—he looked genuinely horrified that I was even out of a hospital bed.

Sara shoved her notebook aside and hurried down the steep, carpeted steps. We all knew the fixed wooden desks were a complete joke. My left leg was permanently locked straight, and I couldn't bend my waist even a fraction of an inch to sit in a normal chair. The only option was the floor at the edge of the front row.

I unstrapped my blue fiberglass cast from the walker, leaning heavily on Sara’s shoulder. I felt like a broken, pathetic spectacle being hauled across the stage while everyone watched. "Just perch on the edge of the bottom step," Sara whispered, her voice tight with stress as she gripped the silver rings of my cage to steady my dead weight. "Keep your back straight."

I took a shaky breath, braced my sneaker against the floor, and slowly lowered myself onto the edge of the carpeted stair. The second my body weight settled, the hard, ninety-degree angle of the concrete step bit directly into my shattered pelvis. The blunt pressure shoved the metal transfixion pins straight into my pulverized bone.

A ragged, high-pitched scream ripped out of my throat before I could stop it. It echoed loudly off the high ceiling. Somewhere a few rows up, a student jolted awake, a pen clattering to the floor. I collapsed sideways, my face burning so hot I thought my skin was melting. I squeezed my eyes shut, biting my lower lip hard enough to taste copper, fiercely fighting back the hot tears. I had just screamed in the middle of a silent college class.

"Okay, okay, I've got you," Sara panicked quietly. She didn't try to pull me back up. She just hauled me backward by my shoulders, practically throwing me flat on my back onto the floor.

I forced myself to shimmy backward, propping my head and shoulders against the second step as much as my upper back would allow. It was the only way I could stay. I was lying on the ground, sprawled out on the dirty carpet of the aisle like a piece of discarded trash at the front of the room, while everyone else sat properly at their desks above me.

The professor cleared his throat, trying to break the awful tension, and walked slowly back to resume the lecture. But he couldn't stop looking at me. Every few minutes, his eyes would dart down to the stairs, filled with that same sickening, helpless sympathy. And every single time he looked, the entire class's gaze would shift to follow his. I couldn't hide. I was just trapped there on the floor, fully exposed.

The throbbing in my hip was a blinding, hot pulse, but then a different kind of pressure hit me. Between the weird, awkward angle of my back against the stairs, the agonizing pain, and the sheer physical exhaustion of just getting into the room, the pressure on my bladder became unbearable. I froze. My breath hitched in my chest.

Right there, in the middle of a dead-quiet room while the professor was dragging chalk across a blackboard, I realized I couldn't hold it. I had absolutely no way to get up, and no way to leave. I lay perfectly still on the carpet, completely paralyzed with shame, and literally had to force myself to just let go. I peed right into the silicone pad of my thick medical diaper in the middle of class. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs. I was terrified to even breathe, silently praying that no one would hear the faint hiss, or worse, notice the bright yellow fluid actively dripping down the clear silicone tube into the collection bag resting openly on the carpet next to my hip.

There was still over an hour left in this lecture. I just closed my eyes, letting my head loll back against the step, and silently begged the universe to let me melt into the floor and disappear.

Escaping the building was the only mercy the morning offered. The campus canteen was right next door, keeping the commute short, though the walkway was still packed. The students parted the second they saw me coming, scattering out of my path and giving my clanking frame a wide, isolating berth. No one came within five feet, whether out of fear of bumping my metal cage or just sheer shock.

Inside the lecture hall, the AC had kept the thick steel rings around my hip freezing cold against my skin. But the moment we stepped into the direct sunlight, the sensory shift was brutal. By the time we finished the grueling five-minute shuffle to the mess hall, the heavy metal rods had soaked up the afternoon sun. The stainless steel was practically baking, radiating an uncomfortable, throbbing heat straight down into the surgical pins buried in my side.

The dining pavilion was deafeningly loud. We immediately claimed a table in the deepest, farthest corner, desperate to put a solid wall behind my back. Sara dropped her heavy backpack and headed off to the food counters. Left alone, I stared at the molded plastic chair next to me. With my left leg locked completely straight and the massive cage wrapping my waist, bending to sit was geometrically impossible. I was trapped standing at the edge of the table, leaning heavily into my walker, towering awkwardly over the empty seats while everyone else relaxed. I felt like a grotesque, broken statue left on display.

Sara came back a few minutes later, sliding a plate of warm pasta onto the table. She took one look at how badly my good leg was trembling from the effort of staying upright. "Do you want me to unstrap your left arm?" she asked gently, gesturing to the thick velcro bands locking my blue cast into the walker's padded trough.

I shook my head, my throat tight. "No. Leave it."

I was too profoundly drained. I desperately needed the solid support of leaning my upper body into that armrest. If she undid the straps, the tiny bit of freedom for my three uncasted fingers wouldn't make up for losing the critical balance keeping me on my feet. But as I looked down at the food, a sickening realization washed over me. My right hand was locked in a death grip on the rubber handle just to keep my trembling leg from giving out. My left arm was strapped down. And when I tried to lean forward, the unyielding metal rods of my pelvis cage dug sharply into my stomach, preventing my upper body from bending toward the table.

I couldn't bridge the gap. I physically couldn't reach my own lunch. A dark, suffocating wave of self-loathing crashed over me. I stared at the steaming pasta, tears of pure, toxic frustration stinging my eyes. I was fundamentally useless. I had dragged myself across campus, endured an absolute nightmare of a morning, and I couldn't even manage the simplest function of feeding myself. I was just a pathetic, helpless burden, and I hated my own body so intensely in that moment that my chest ached.

"Sara," I whispered, the word cracking in half. I kept my eyes glued to the plastic plate, too ashamed to look at her. "I... I can't reach the spoon. I can't bend down."

I braced myself for the heavy sigh or the tragic, pitying look everyone else kept giving me today. But Sara didn't say a single word. She didn't gasp or hesitate. She simply pushed her chair back, stood up, walked around the table to stand right beside me, and picked up the fork. She twirled a bite of pasta and raised it directly to my lips.

My face burned with a fiery, consuming humiliation—standing upright in the corner of a public cafeteria, being quietly spoon-fed. But as I opened my mouth and took the bite, looking at Sara's calm, completely unfazed expression, the shame tangled up with a massive knot of gratitude. I forced the corners of my mouth up into a tiny, shaky smile as I chewed. Sara just gave me a quick, conspiratorial wink and scooped up the next bite.

The rest of the meal was a grueling exercise in endurance. My right thigh vibrated from the strain of supporting the heavy steel hardware, and my knuckles on the walker grip had gone completely white. Sara kept up a steady stream of complaints about dorm laundry machines, never once acknowledging the staring students two tables over or the fact that her own food was getting cold. She just systematically made sure I finished enough carbs to keep from passing out. When my plate was finally empty, I was exhausted to the point of nausea. I shifted my sweaty palm on the rubber handle, quietly bracing myself for whatever the rest of the schedule had waiting for me.

Sara dumped my heavy textbooks onto the very first desk by the door, gave me a frantic, apologetic grimace, and sprinted back into the hall. I shoved the heavy wooden door open with the bumper of my walker, the rubber feet squeaking violently against the linoleum. The professor stopped reading from the sociology syllabus. The entire room turned around. I froze in the doorway. Unlike the tiered physics hall, this room was totally flat, packed wall-to-wall with tight, traditional rows of wooden benches and attached desks. With my left leg bolted completely straight and the massive metal cage jutting out from my waist, sliding into one of those seats was geographically impossible. I couldn't bend.

The only open space was a narrow strip of floor along the very back wall. I had to do the slow, agonizing, clanking shuffle past fifty staring students, the stainless steel hardware knocking against my side with every step. By the time I reached the back wall and locked my walker brakes, I was already dripping with cold sweat. I leaned my weight heavily into the padded trough of the left armrest. My right thigh, which was already completely burned out from the cafeteria, immediately began to tremble under the strain. I stared blankly at the chalkboard. I was stranded. My books were at the front of the room. Both of my hands were currently occupied keeping me upright. My left arm was strapped in, my right hand was in a death grip on the rubber handle. I had zero free hands. I couldn't open a book. I couldn't take a note.

Then I saw him. Lucas was sitting in the back row, just two desks away. I hadn't seen him since that Sunday afternoon in my apartment, back when I had the heavy brown blanket to hide under. Right now, there was no blanket. I swallowed hard, the knot in my throat feeling like sandpaper. I desperately wanted to look capable, but my leg was shaking so badly I was afraid my knee would buckle. I caught his eye. Before I could overthink it, I lifted the three free fingers of my left hand in a weak, pathetic little wave.

Lucas immediately sat up, pushed his chair back quietly, and walked over. "Hey," he whispered, keeping his voice low so the professor wouldn't hear. "Hey," I breathed out, my face burning. I looked at the floor, completely unable to meet his eyes. "Sara had to run. She left my books on the front desk. Could you...?" "Yeah, I got it," he said instantly. He walked to the front of the room, retrieved the heavy stack, and brought them back, setting them gently on the floor next to the wheel of my walker. He looked at my strapped arm, and then at my white-knuckled right hand. "Don't stress about writing," Lucas said quietly, shifting his weight. "I'll just email you pictures of my notes after class." He went back to his desk before I could even say thank you.

The next 2 and a half hours were a grueling test of physical endurance. Every muscle in my right leg screamed in protest. I kept my eyes locked on the professor, violently hyper-aware that Lucas was sitting just a few feet away, with a perfect, unobstructed view of the metal hardware bolted through my leg. I felt so exposed, so fragile, just leaning there like a broken prop. When the bell finally rang, the room erupted into chaos. Fifty chairs scraped against the linoleum at once as students stood up and began packing their bags. I let out a ragged breath, unlocking the brakes on my walker. I just wanted to get out of this room. I gripped the right handle and tried to pivot my body to join the exit flow.

But after standing perfectly rigid for almost 3 hours, asking my severely damaged muscles to suddenly twist was a catastrophic mistake. Deep inside my left thigh, the traumatized nerves completely short-circuited. A massive, involuntary muscle spasm ripped through my quad. Because my leg was bolted straight, the muscle violently contracted directly against the unyielding surgical pins. The kinetic energy had nowhere to go. My entire locked left leg and pelvis rigidly jerked outward in one violent, uncontrollable motion. The heavy steel rings of my cage slammed aggressively into the aluminum side-bar of my walker. CLANG.

A blinding, white-hot spike of agony shot straight into my shattered pelvis as the transfixion pins tore against my bone. I gasped sharply, gripping the rubber handle so hard my knuckles popped. Before I could even catch my breath, the muscle misfired again. CLANG. CLANG.

The hardware violently rattled against the aluminum frame twice more in rapid succession. The sound was deafening, echoing like a dropped toolbox over the chatter of the room. The jolts were so hard they nearly knocked the walker out from under me. The pain was so intense my vision actually whited out at the edges. I squeezed my eyes shut, a pathetic, involuntary whimper escaping my throat. The students bottlenecked in the aisle instantly stopped and stared. Lucas, who had just zipped up his backpack, froze, his eyes darting to the shaking metal frame in my hands. I stood completely paralyzed, my chest heaving, the blood rushing so violently to my face it pounded in my ears. I couldn't control my own body. It was just misfiring, loud and broken, right in front of him. By the time the spasms finally subsided a few agonizing seconds later, leaving my leg throbbing with a dull, sickening ache, the damage was completely done.

"Illy! Hey!" Sara's voice cut through the heavy tension. She popped her head through the open doorway, looking slightly out of breath but totally oblivious to the spectacle that had just happened. "Ready to go? The golf cart is waiting outside to take you back to the dorm."

The golf cart dropped us off at the entrance, and by the time we dragged ourselves through the glass double doors of the dorm lobby, I was completely checked out. I was running on pure, toxic autopilot. My mind was just a skipping record, playing the horrific, deafening CLANG of my muscle spasm in front of Lucas over and over again. Sara was walking right beside me, talking a mile a minute. I think she was rambling about a history paper she hadn't started yet, desperately trying to build a wall of words to pull me out of my dark mental spiral. I was just staring at the floor, focusing all my remaining energy on pushing the squeaking walker forward one agonizing inch at a time.

Then, mid-sentence, Sara stopped dead in her tracks. I took another heavy step before realizing she wasn't beside me. I paused, my right leg trembling violently, and looked back at her. All day—through the humiliating lunch, the brutal logistics of the classroom, the staring—Sara had been an absolute rock. Her calm, unbothered facade hadn't cracked once. But right now, her eyes were wide, fixed entirely on my waist. All the color had drained from her face. "Illy," she breathed out, her voice suddenly trembling. "You're bleeding."

I looked down. When my leg had violently spasmed in the classroom, the rigid fixator hadn't just slammed into my walker. The massive muscle contraction had pulled aggressively against the transfixion pins drilled into my pelvis, tearing the fragile, healing tissue right at the anchor points. A bright, unmistakable patch of wet red was rapidly spreading across the thick horizontal strip of white gauze spanning my waistline. If you’ve never had a panic attack while physically bolted upright inside a medical exoskeleton, let me tell you—it is a uniquely claustrophobic hell.

Seeing my own blood actively seeping through the bandages snapped whatever tiny thread of composure I had left. My chest hitched. The air suddenly felt too thin. I tried to take a breath, but it came out as a ragged, high-pitched wheeze. I was hyperventilating, completely paralyzed. I was just trapped standing there in the middle of the lobby, gripping the aluminum frame as the blood kept spreading. "Okay, okay, hold on!" Sara panicked, her hands hovering helplessly around me, terrified to touch the metal cage.

The lobby was packed with students waiting for the elevators or checking their mail. The commotion immediately drew their attention. A crowd began to form, keeping a wide circle. The whispers started instantly, sharp and unfiltered, cutting straight through my ringing ears. "Oh my god, is she bleeding?" "Look at her hip..." "What even is that metal thing?" "Wait, is she wearing a...?" Every syllable felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest, suffocating me even more. "Let me through, give her space!" One of the dorm caretakers pushed her way through the circle of students, a red first-aid kit in her hand. She took one look at the complex, industrial nightmare of my hardware and realized immediately she couldn't actually fix it. Instead, she ripped open a pack of thick trauma pads, stepped right into my personal space, and pressed them firmly against the pin sites on my hip.

I whimpered as the blunt pressure hit the torn tissue. I had to just stand there, panting and exposed, while a total stranger acted as a human dam for my bleeding waist in front of half the dorm. Behind the caretaker, Sara had her phone pressed to her ear, her voice tight and frantic as she barked instructions to Nurse Evelyn. It felt like hours, but it was probably only three minutes before the elevator doors dinged open and Evelyn rushed out. She was pushing my specialized, fully reclined wheelchair, her face locked in total professional focus.

"Alright, sweetheart, I've got you. Let's get you off that leg," Evelyn said calmly, completely ignoring the staring crowd. With Sara holding the walker steady and Evelyn supporting my upper back, they carefully detached my left arm from the trough. Lowering my rigid, cage-locked body flat into the reclined chair was an agonizing maneuver, but the second my weight was finally off my burning right leg, the sheer physical relief almost made me pass out. Evelyn wheeled me straight through the lobby, parting the sea of staring students, with Sara trailing right behind us carrying my bags.

The moment Evelyn pushed me into my dorm room and Sara clicked the heavy door shut behind us, the outside world vanished. But there was no time to breathe. Evelyn went straight to work, and the situation instantly escalated into a frantic medical triage. The blood hadn't just soaked the gauze; it had run down into the thick waistband of my medical diaper and stained the velcro slits of my modified shorts. Everything had to come off. "Sara, hold her right shoulder steady so she doesn't twist," Evelyn ordered sharply.

Sara immediately stepped up, her hands firmly gripping my good shoulder. Evelyn didn't hesitate. In the sheer, chaotic urgency of stopping the bleeding and preventing infection, the normal boundaries of privacy completely evaporated. Evelyn quickly undid the heavy velcro of my pink shorts and pulled them completely off my legs. Then, with practiced, clinical efficiency, she tore the taped tabs of my bloodied diaper and pulled it away. I was gasping, gripping the armrest of the wheelchair with my right hand as the sharp, chemical sting of antiseptic flared against my raw skin. It wasn't until Evelyn was slipping a fresh, clean diaper under my hips and securing the tapes that the horrifying reality caught up to me.

Sara was right there. In the heat of the emergency, I had completely forgotten she was in the room. I was lying there entirely exposed, having my adult diaper changed by a nurse, and my best friend was standing less than two feet away, actively holding me down for it. Evelyn finished wrapping fresh bandages around the surgical pins and pulled a blanket over my lower half, but the damage was done. The last drop of adrenaline finally drained out of my system. I was laid flat. I was patched up. But the sheer, catastrophic humiliation of the day had finally broken me. I didn't sob, and I didn't scream. I just stared blindly at the ceiling, letting the hot, exhausted tears silently leak out of the corners of my eyes and slide down into my hair.

The heavy wooden door clicked shut behind Evelyn, leaving the room in a thick, suffocating silence. I lay perfectly flat on my mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling. I couldn't stop crying. It wasn't loud—just a pathetic, endless stream of hot tears leaking from the corners of my eyes and sliding into my hair. Sara sighed, dragging her desk chair closer to my bed. "Here. Just take a sip of water, Illy." "No," I choked out, my voice thick. "I hate my life, Sara. I hate it. I can't... I can't do this anymore. This is too much."

"I know it feels like too much," Sara said gently, setting the cup down. "But it's over. You're safe in the room. Just breathe." "I'm never going back to that class," I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. "I can't go back out there. I'm dropping out." "Stop it. Don't say that. It was just a bad day." "A bad day?" I opened my eyes, my chest heaving. "I bled through my clothes in the lobby! I twitched like a freak in front of everyone! Lucas saw everything!"

"Lucas is a good guy, he doesn't care about that stuff," Sara insisted smoothly. "And the lobby? It's just medical, Illy. Everyone was just worried about you. Nobody is judging you. By tomorrow, someone will do something stupid in the dining hall and everyone will completely forget this even happened." "It's just medical? Are you kidding me? Look at me! I am bolted into a cage! I am leaking fluid into a bag! I just had a nurse change my diaper while you held me down!" "I'm just saying people aren't looking at you like that. It's not a big deal—"

Knock. Knock.

We both froze. Sara stood up and walked to the door, opening it just a few inches. "Hey," a hushed, incredibly sympathetic voice drifted through the crack. It was Chloe from down the hall. "We didn't want to intrude, but... we heard what happened down in the lobby. Is Ilaria okay? We heard there was a lot of blood and she was, like, hyperventilating?" Another girl chimed in. "Yeah, we just wanted to see if she needed anything. It looked so awful. We feel so bad for her."

"She's okay," Sara said quickly, her voice tight. "She's just resting right now. But thank you guys." Sara clicked the door shut and turned back around. Something inside me completely shattered. "Not a big deal?" I gasped, my voice rising into a hysterical, hyperventilating pitch. "Nobody's judging me? They're literally knocking on the door to pity the freak show, Sara!" "Illy, they were just being nice—" "SHUT THE FUCK UP, SARA!" I screamed, the sound tearing my throat. "Just shut up! Stop acting like it's fine!"

Sara stepped back, her eyes widening. "You don't know!" I sobbed, practically choking on my own spit, pointing a shaking, casted arm at her. "You don't know what it's like! It's easy for you to say 'nobody cares' when you're not the one wearing a diaper! You get to walk away! You get to be normal! Let me look at your hip, Sara! Let me see it! It's there! It's intact! You can bend your waist!" "Ilaria, please—" "NO! You don't know what it's like to be trapped inside this broken fucking body! You have no idea! So stop standing there telling me how I'm supposed to feel!"

My chest heaved, pulling painfully at the fresh bandages on my waist. I glared at her, completely blinded by my own humiliation and rage. Sara didn't yell back. She didn't defend herself. She just stared at me for a long, heavy moment. Then, without a word, she turned around. She walked over to her desk, sat down, pulled out her history textbook, and slipped her headphones over her ears. She completely shut me out.

The adrenaline vanished as quickly as it had spiked. My screams dissolved into pathetic, exhausted gasps. The silence in the room became absolute, pressing down on me like a physical weight. I lay there, physically paralyzed in my bed, unable to roll over or wipe my own face. For two hours, the only sound in the room was the turning of Sara's textbook pages. The anger entirely melted away, leaving behind a cold, crushing pit of horror in my stomach. I had just screamed at my best friend. The only person who had anchored my walker and stood by me through the stares. I was a monster.

Around seven o'clock, Sara quietly stood up, grabbed her keys, and walked out of the room. The door clicked. I squeezed my eyes shut, fresh tears spilling over my nose. She's done, I thought. I finally pushed her away. Twenty minutes later, the handle turned. Sara walked back in, carrying two plastic takeout containers. She set them on her desk, took off her jacket, and walked over to my bed. She popped the lid off one of the containers. It was mac and cheese. Without a word, she picked up the plastic fork, scooped up a small bite, and held it out toward my mouth.

I looked at the fork, then up at her face. My lower lip violently trembled. "I'm sorry," I sobbed softly, the tears spilling uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry, Sara." Sara kept the fork steady. "Eat, Illy." "I didn't mean it," I wept, shaking my head weakly. "I'm so sorry. I hate myself. I hate myself so much. You do everything for me and I'm just... I'm a disgusting burden. You should just leave me alone. I don't deserve—"

"Hey," Sara interrupted, her voice firm but incredibly soft. She lowered the fork. "Look at me. You had the worst day of your life," she said quietly. "You're allowed to break down. You're allowed to be mad. But you are not a burden. And I'm not leaving." She scooped the fork again and held it back up. "Now open. You haven't eaten since lunch." I let out a broken whimper, opening my mouth and letting her feed me.

Sara tossed the empty containers into the trash and grabbed a warm, wet washcloth. I was still sniffling as she gently wiped the tear tracks off my cheeks. "Stop apologizing," she ordered softly, propping my phone up on my chest just as the WhatsApp video call ringtone chimed. "You had a great first day back. Ready?" I swallowed the heavy lump of self-hatred, forcing a painfully bright, completely fake smile as my parents' faces popped onto the screen. "Hi Mom, hi Dad! Today was amazing. The lectures were great, getting around with the walker was super easy..." Dad’s thick eyebrows shot up while Mom’s face pinched with worry. The silence stretched until my forced smile finally cracked. "Okay, fine," I muttered. "It was completely exhausting. But it was... fine. I survived."

Mom leaned closer to her screen. "Ilaria, why are your eyes so puffy and red? Have you been crying?" Panic flared in my chest. If they knew about the massive bloodstain, the violent spasm in front of Lucas, or the fact that I had just spent two hours screaming at my best friend, Dad would be driving up right now to drag me home. I opened my mouth, my brain completely short-circuiting. Sara instantly leaned into the frame, completely saving me. "That is totally my fault, Mr. and Mrs. Fernandes!" she said smoothly. "I bought this cheap new grapefruit face wash and convinced Illy to try it. Turns out she’s definitely sensitive to it. Her eyes have been watering for the last hour." Mom let out a massive sigh of relief while Dad visibly relaxed his shoulders. I looked up at Sara, the girl I had just verbally destroyed, my heart swelling with an overwhelming, crushing wave of gratitude.