Her Secret Battles

4: Gone

It had been a month since the collapse at school.

Outwardly, the incident was fading into whispers of memory. Teachers had stopped asking questions, classmates’ stares had dulled to polite curiosity, and Noriah, though still protective, had stopped hovering as much. To the outside world, Novana was fine, or at least fine enough.

But inside, nothing had healed.

Every day was a new appointment, a new ritual, a new promise of answers that never seemed to come. She had visited doctor after doctor, each one checking blood, pulse, and reflexes, offering nothing beyond tentative explanations. Then came the acupuncture sessions, the aromatherapy oils, the Chinese herbs that promised energy and balance but left her stomach twisting instead. She had sat through endless church prayers, prophetic sessions, and whispered incantations that left her body buzzing and shaking, no calmer than before.

Some days, she felt as if her body and mind were locked in a battle she couldn’t win. The tremors, the fainting spells, the strange buzzing in her ears, they refused to go away.

Her parents’ relationship was beginning to fray under the constant pressure.

Her father, patient but increasingly tense, wanted medical solutions. “Nova needs proper treatment,” he would insist quietly, only to be met with sharp rebuttals from her mother.

“You think too much about medicine!” her mother would snap. “Your constant tests and tablets have made her weak. You’re causing this! You’re the reason she can’t find peace!”

“And you’re making her afraid of her own body!” he would reply, voice rising in frustration. “You drag her from one prophet to another, from candlelit prayer to whispered incantations. Look at her! She’s exhausted!”

Novana tried to shrink into herself during their arguments, holding her breath, wishing they could see her pain without turning it into blame. She was tired, physically, mentally, emotionally. Every new hospital, every new church visit, every new “solution” added more weight to her chest, more buzzing to her head, more fear to her steps.

Why can’t this stop? she thought one afternoon as she lay in her hospital bed after a routine checkup. Why won’t my body listen? I’ve tried everything. Every test, every medicine, every prayer. What if it never gets better?

She glanced out the window, watching children laugh on the street. Their lives seemed so simple, so carefree. And she, she was trapped inside a body that refused to cooperate, a mind that couldn’t stop worrying, and a home that was fracturing under the strain of love and desperation.

Her father gently squeezed her hand. “We’ll figure this out, Nova. I promise. I won’t give up on you.”

She nodded weakly, forcing herself to believe him, even as doubt gnawed at the edges of her mind.

The arguments at home had grown louder, sharper, less restrained. By the end of the week, every hospital visit, every church session, every suggestion of a new treatment became a battlefield.

“You think doctors can fix this?!” her mother had screamed one evening, slamming her Bible on the table. “They can’t see the spirit! They can’t hear what she’s hearing!”

“They can’t see her tremble either!” her father snapped back. “Do you think it’s easy watching her suffer every day? Do you think it’s easy knowing you might be missing something simple that could save her?”

For a while, Novana had stayed silent, staring at the floor, wishing the walls could swallow her. She could feel the tension radiating through the air, twisting her stomach into knots, and the buzzing in her ears grew louder every time the shouting escalated.

She wanted to scream, to tell them to stop fighting, to make it stop, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.

It was Friday when they returned from another hospital visit, the kind where tests were run, medicines adjusted, and hope was offered and then quietly taken away. The car ride home had been silent, each of her parents lost in thought, heavy with the weight of their own frustration and fear.

The house was quiet when they walked in. But the quiet was strange, uneasy.

Her father frowned immediately. “Where’s your mother?” he asked.

Novana’s stomach lurched. She stepped inside, scanning the living room. The Bible was gone. Her mother’s clothes, shoes, and personal items had vanished from the bedroom she had shared with Novana and Noriah.

A small envelope sat on the kitchen table, folded neatly, her mother’s handwriting scrawled across the front: I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. I need to find myself. I love you both, but I cannot stay.

Novana froze, her chest tightening, buzzing in her ears louder than it had been in weeks. Her hands shook violently, and she gripped the table for support.

“Mom… she’s gone,” her father said softly, voice shaking. He hadn’t touched the envelope yet, afraid of what reading it might do to him.

Noriah’s eyes widened, tears welling up instantly. “She… she left?”

Novana couldn’t speak. Her throat felt tight, raw. The storm inside her head, the tremors in her body, the hopelessness she had been holding at bay, they all rushed forward at once. She sank to the floor, feeling as if the walls of her home, the one place that should have been safe, were collapsing around her.

Her father reached for her, but she recoiled slightly. I can’t lean on anyone anymore. I have to survive this myself.

Noriah knelt beside her, hugging her trembling shoulders. “We’ll figure this out, Nova. We’re still here. I’m still here.”

But even her twin’s words couldn’t silence the emptiness that her mother’s departure had carved into the room.

Novana felt a shadow fall over her chest, deeper than any fainting spell, darker than any buzzing in her ears. It was a cold, heavy feeling that whispered: You are alone. No one can fix this. No one can save you.

And for the first time in weeks, she felt tears stream freely, unchecked.

She clutched her head, rocking slightly on the floor, and thought bitterly:

I’ve gone from one hospital to another. One prophet to another. Acupuncture, aromatherapy, Chinese medicine. Nothing works. Nothing helps. And now… even the one person I thought would always be here has left. How do I keep going?

Her father knelt beside her, silent for a moment, then gently lifted the envelope from the counter. He unfolded it slowly, reading the words that made her stomach twist and her mind whirl.

“I… I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, voice cracking.

Noriah sobbed quietly, her small body shaking beside Novana. “Why, Mom? Why would she leave?”

Novana pressed her face into her hands. She wanted to scream, to beg, to demand someone fix this, but there was no one. The buzzing in her ears had turned into a roar, echoing her panic, her fear, her despair.

And yet, in that moment of crushing emptiness, she found a small spark inside herself.

I am still here.

I am still breathing.

I have to survive.

Even if no one else could help her.

Because the world had moved on, the school incident forgotten, the doctors’ words inconclusive, the prophets’ prayers unanswered, and her mother gone…

Novana realized something she hadn’t allowed herself to admit until now:

The only person who can fight for me… is me.

She lifted her head slowly, wiping away tears, listening to the faint hum in her ears, the tremors in her hands, the dull ache in her chest. It was still there, but she clung to it, because it reminded her she was alive, still capable of feeling, still capable of fighting.

Noriah’s small hand found hers, squeezing gently. “We’ll make it through,” she whispered.

Novana nodded. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know what the next month would hold. But for the first time in weeks, she felt the tiniest flicker of determination, fragile but real.

Because even in the midst of hospitals, prophets, treatments, and heartbreak… she was still here.

And surviving, she realized, was the first step toward everything else.