featherlight ✅

paper airplane math

"Do you ever wonder if the stars shine out for you"

Finally. 

I'm going to be released tomorrow. 

Of course, I'll still be coming here once a week to have my therapy sessions with Dr Linda, and I'll only go back to school in a little over a week's time, but still. 

I never thought I'd come this far. 

My mom has already packed most of my stuff up, all the nurses I've met today are telling me how proud they are of me, and Ashton and Ava are coming to visit me later. All in all, I'd say, it's probably the best day I've had in this place. 

And wow, I've been through so much in this one little room. This is where I was at my worst with anorexia, but also where I managed- somehow- to begin my journey along the road of recovery. Hobbling at times, walking faster at others. Tripping and skidding backwards, but continuing. It's hard, but... I'm getting discharged tomorrow. 

I can't believe it. I was told last week that they were considering letting me go, but it never truly sank in until this morning when I woke up and looked outside the window, realizing that I'll never have to spend another whole day looking out of it again. 

My phone buzzes with a text: it's Mateo, sending a selfie of him grinning widely. I'm so proud of you Kat! What a queen, he writes. Heart emoji. Bicep emoji. 

I send him a text back- yea ik right? I never thought i'd acc get released from this place. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed again. 

And I really do mean it. It's cool to have a bed where you can push buttons and make it prop you upright into a sitting position, but I got bored of it quickly. All I want is my own blankets on top of me with my little electric candle on my bedside table. 

One more day. And then that wish becomes a reality. 

Snack time rolls by, and I eat the small chicken pot pie that they give me. A few weeks ago, I would've had to sit here and cry and argue with my mom until I would take even one small nibble. Now I know that if I am to get out of here and stay healthy, I need to eat it. If I listen really closely, the voice is still there- don't eat it Katherine Greene- but for the most part, it's ignorable. 

Above my head there's a TV. It always plays the same five episodes of America's Got Talent over and over again, so it's usually switched off, but I've turned it on today and I watch it, munching, as a man tries to escape a cage. 

My mom looks up from the newspaper she was reading as her phone beeps with a notification. "They're on their way," she says.  

I can't help but smile widely. Ashton's bringing Ava over and I couldn't be more excited to see them both. Despite Dr Linda trying to convince me time and time again that I'm still a good sister regardless of whether or not I'm holed up in a hospital ward, I don't quite believe it. And I won't be fully happy until I'm out of the hospital and can look after Ave when my parents are busy, like I used to. 

I try to concentrate on the rest of the episode, but my heart is thrumming in my stomach. I'm not sure if I'm nervous or excited or something else in between. 

Finally, there's a knock on the door and I leap off the bed to open it. 

Ava explodes into my arms, and I wrap my arms around her fiercely. Her head is much closer to mine than it used to be; my heart aches for all the dinner-time jokes and the stories from school that I've missed while I've been here. She had a swimming competition a few days after I was hospitalised so I missed it, but my mom said that Ava had been too upset to do well. 

I squeeze her harder. I want to apologize for things that I don't know how to put into words but I know that she'd tell me not to. So all I do is say hello and look at the person who's standing slightly awkwardly against the doorframe, baseball cap on his head and a familiar smile on his face. I let go of Ave and hug him hard.

"You'll be out by this time tomorrow," Ashton whispers into my ear. "I can't believe it. I'm so fucking proud of you." 

"I know," I say, letting go of him and letting Ava drag me onto the bed as she switches the TV off with a wrinkle of her nose. I laugh. "It's just America's Got Talent, Ave."

"I know. And I've seen this episode at least three times."

"How many times have do you think I've watched it, then?" I answer with a grin. 

"Way too many," my mom says. "How are you, Ashton?"

"I'm good," he replies cheerfully, sliding down the wall to sit cross legged against it. "My baseball coach said I have a lot of wasted potential and will be the death of him, but I think that it was just his way of complimenting me." 

"What are you looking for?" I ask Ava, whose frowning and looking around the room. 

"Paper," she says. "I'm going to show Ashton my paper airplanes."

I clap my palms to my forehead. "Oh my god, not you and paper airplanes again." 

Ashton unzips his backpack and tosses Ava an exercise book. "Use that." 

"Ashton, you really don't need to," my mom says at the same time as I say, "Ashton, that's your literature book."

"Exactly," he says with an impish smile. "It doesn't matter. I don't think I've learned a single thing in Lit this whole year." A minute later, Ava throws him an airplane, and he catches it single-handedly out of the air and looks at it. "And I'm perfectly happy with spending my day catching these." 

I relent and rip a few pages from the book the way Ava has done. "D'you have a pen?"

He throws me a black biro, and I write several words onto each piece. Ava teaches me how to make paper airplanes, and I fold them carefully, making sure the message is hidden inside. 

And then I send him a string of paper airplanes, each with a fragment of a sentence on them. They all land in his lap, and he opens them one by one and in order, gingerly unfolding each crease. 

You're the sum of all tomorrows, the first one reads. 

And I'll say that tomorrow, is the next. Two out of the four airplanes have been opened. His mouth curves upwards slightly. 

He opens the third. And the day after-

Last one. And every single day forever.

Ashton looks up, finally, after rereading each one of them and folding them carefully back into planes. And it's his eyes and his smile and his words- "You're really something, Kitty-" and Ashton Ashton Ashton. 

He unfolds one of Ava's airplanes, takes out a highlighter from his pencil case and flies it back to me. 

Ava peers over my shoulder as I unfold it. 

I'm not a poet or a mathematician Kat so this might just be the worst sentence in human history but Kat you're like everything to the power of everything. If I did my math right I think that's a lot. 

I look at him. He just shrugs. My mom looks a little confused, following our interaction with her eyes from her corner of the room. 

"That's so cute," Ava says. 

"I'll write you one too, Ave," Ashton says. "In all fairness you're the better sister, really-"

I throw the biro at his chest.