Page 13 of The Hallows Queen

I slam the cabinet, groaning and moaning.

Still dragging my feet, I go to the guest room and open the door. Katie is asleep under the blankets, snoring lightly with her arm thrown over her eyes.

“Wake up!” I yell, climbing onto the bed to lie with her.

She groans, trying to roll over away from me. I shake her. “Please get up, I need some coffee so bad.”

“You can’t make your own coffee?” she mutters into the pillow, sleep coating her voice.

I chuckle. “We don’thaveany coffee, so we need to go get some.”

She shakes her head. “Bring me back a latte.”

I sigh, staring at her as she nuzzles down into the pillows to go back to sleep. “You suck.”

She doesn’t say anything else as I get up and walk out of the room, leaving the door open. I go to my room and throw on a tank top, some shorts, and sunglasses, grab my wallet and phone, then head for the door.

The motion of the elevator makes me feel sick, so I grip onto the wall as it heads down to the ground floor, moaning when it finally stops and I can get off.

I swallow down the bile in the back of my throat, willing myself not to throw up, and walk outside. The sun is already beating down and heating the day, making the dew from overnight steam up from the grass. I yawn, taking the sidewalk and avoiding the few people who have dared to be downtown this early.

It takes about ten minutes to get to the little coffee shop that sits on the corner of the street, and the line is out the door as people get their morning fix before they go to work.

I groan, wanting to cry at the thought of holding myself upright for the length of this line. The guy in front of me turns, gives me a dirty look, then faces forward again. I’m far too hungover to control myself, so my face curls into a scowl and I scoff. He doesn’t turn around again, so I let him fade from my mind.

After fifteen minutes, I’m at the register. The perky teen greets me, “Hi! What can we get for you today?”

I totally forgot to look at the menu, so my eyes trail upwards to the signs hanging over her head. I don’t want to bethatperson, though, so I order two very large lattes and four muffins on impulse.

The baristas are quick, and I make a mental note to make this my usual stop for coffee from now on. Within five minutes, I’m out the door and heading home.

I drink half of my latte on the walk, the warm and foamy nectar breathing life back into my aching and exhausted body. By the time I’m unlocking my front door, I feel 80% normal.

Katie is sitting on the kitchen island, kicking her legs back and forth as she scrolls her phone in one hand and holds a glass of water in the other. When she hears the door open, her head turns to the side, and she downs the water until the glass is empty.

“Morning.” Holding out her latte, I approach her.

She takes it, discarding her empty glass on the granite next to her. She takes a sip, then groans. “Thank you.”

I deposit the muffins on the counter, pulling one out and picking at it. “I have a meeting at the school in two hours, then we can go shopping for house stuff.”

She nods, grabbing a muffin for herself. “Sounds good.”

I pull the wrapper from the bottom half of my muffin, then take a big bite before I put it back in the bag and take a swig from my coffee cup. I kiss Katie on the head as I pass. “Gonna shower.”

Unpacking my toiletry bag, I put everything in the walk-in glass shower in my bathroom, then I crank the hot water and strip down. My skin aches at the first touch of the steaming water, but it’s a good ache, like my body is thanking me for soothing it. I stand under the spray for a while, just letting the water run over my head and back, bending forward and closing my eyes.

For someone who’s putting herself through a cross-country move while her dad dies of cancer, I feel surprisingly stable. There’s metal and stone in my veins after growing up the way I did, and I’m more resilient than most. For once, my shitty childhood is something I’m thankful for, because I don’t know what I would be feeling if I wasn’t so strong. I don’t think I could handle everything going on.

I learned at a young age to find something positive in every single part of life – you have to, or you won’t fucking survive. If I had let my circumstances dictate every part of my emotional well-being, I would have shattered a long time ago. There isalwayssomething you can find to be happy about. Even when life is crumbling around you, even when everything feels dark and empty, picking one tiny little thing to get you through might just be the thing to tip the scales your way.

Even if it’s something irrelevant, something so small that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, I’ve always put my focus on that when life is hard. I know I’m lucky to have that outlook, as I’ve seen the best of people fall to the hardships and distress of life being in the foster system for so long. It’s easy to let negativity and bad circumstances consume you, but I think something inside of me is wired differently.

Even when I had nothing and no one, I got through.

That’s enough for me to keep my head high and keep moving forward.

I had to move home, my dad is going to die, my mom is going to be alone, I left all my friends, but I am going to be okay. I’m starting my first teaching job soon, which has been a dream and goal of mine for as long as I can remember. I get to live at the beach again. These are the things keeping me going.

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