21
Chloe
“No!”
My feet slip in the blood as I lunge forward, dropping to my knees over Mom’s body. Her beautiful, expressive face is slack, her soft brown eyes glazed and unseeing. Her pink robe, my Christmas gift from last year, gapes open at the top, revealing her left breast, and her right arm is flung out to the side, blood from the deep vertical gash in her forearm pooling on the clean white tiles, seeping into the immaculately maintained grout. Her left arm is pressed against her side, but there’s blood there too. So much blood…
“Mom!” I press my icy fingers to her neck. I can’t feel a pulse, or maybe I just don’t know where to find it. Because there’s a pulse. There’s got to be. She wouldn’t do this. Not now. Not again. I’m simultaneously frantic and numb, my thoughts hurtling a
