I hated the tubes attached to the mask that covered my mouth. The sterile, cold plastic felt alien, an intrusive barrier between me and the world I desperately wanted to scream at. The white walls that surrounded me—so blindingly clean—seemed to mock the chaos roiling inside my head. They were suffocating, relentless in their blankness, and I hated every inch of them. Worse still were the uninvited people who lingered against those walls, waiting like vultures to watch me suffer. Their fake concern and empty eyes made my blood boil. The moment my eyelids fluttered open, a wave of hatred spilled from me, but nobody noticed. They were all too caught up in their own masks of false patience and contrived sympathy.
Then I saw them—the last people I wanted to see—my mom standing there with Sco
