Stella
The first thing I felt was weight. Not the comforting kind—blankets and sleep and gravity doing its job. This was heavier. Wrong. Like my bones had been filled with wet sand and left to settle.
The second thing was light. Not daylight. Hospital light. I was sick of that light. It pressed through my eyelids in a steady, pale wash that made everything behind my eyes throb.
I tried to swallow and realized my mouth was dry enough to crack. My tongue stuck to the roof of it. My throat burned like I'd been screaming for hours. I blinked my eyes open anyway. White ceiling. Sterile panels. The soft, relentless hum of machines.
An IV line tugged faintly at my arm when I shifted. My abdomen complained immediately—deep, bruised pain beneath bandages and compression like my body had been w
