Montana and Natasha were inseparable. Until the day they weren't.
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Montana Belmonte-Rowe sees her acceptance into Harvard as a fresh start. Still haunted by the tragic death of...
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featuring:
→ kaya scodelario as meredith "red" carson (mentioned only)
CHAPTER THREE
MEET ME ON THE EQUINOX
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THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE WAS THE DAY MOTHER DIED. The following days were bad, but day zero was the worst—it was the day that marked the two very different eras of my life: With Mother and Without Mother. People visited me in the hospital, told me they were sorry for my loss and that they hoped I'd get better soon, while I had gone mute.
I hadn't lost my ability to speak after the accident, but I had seemingly lost the will to do so. Whenever I tried to open my mouth, I'd feel it instantly dry up as if my saliva had been sucked up, like when you're at the dentist and those tubes make you feel like you're going to suffocate; I had also broken a rib and it had missed my lung by mere lucky inches, so I didn't want to take any chances by putting my body through what could potentially be too much for it to handle.
I cooperated with my doctors and nurses and was a good girl, not squirming too much when they shoved that feeding tube down my nose and throat during my first days at the hospital, and not throwing myself to palpable food once I was able to eat properly. I cooperated in physiotherapy, nodding in agreement whenever I fell to the mattress and my therapist told me I could do it if I kept trying (though my legs felt like wet spaghetti whenever I pulled myself back up).
I just didn't cooperate in therapy. I couldn't speak out of fear I'd say something stupid. I couldn't speak out of fear I'd say something to disrespect Mother's memory. I didn't speak when Cousin Hayden stopped by to visit me because I felt like he'd analyze everything I said or did and I couldn't tell him I felt like my body didn't belong to me.
I was floating. The doctors stitched me up, whispered I was a very brave girl, and stopped the bleeding whenever my blood decided to squirt out of any open wounds. If I focused enough, I could hear them plucking out glass shards from my limbs as if they were simply plucking out wild hairs from my eyebrows, except hairs don't clink when they fall. They said I was silent because I was emotionally traumatized and not because my vocal chords were damaged in the crash.
