Dad decided today that I’m doing well enough to leave the hospital. Gav had just stopped by when I got the news, and he offered to drive me over to Tessa’s. I hadn’t realized how much I’d gotten used to the pretty-much-quiet of my room. In the halls of the hospital, people are sitting on blankets or pillows or whatever else the volunteer staff have been able to find, coughing and sneezing into their face masks. They watched me as I walked by with Gav as my shadow. My face mask only filtered out some of the sour-sweat smell, and made each breath thick and humid. I pulled it down when we stepped outside, to gulp the cool air. On the street, it was quiet again. Dead leaves were blowing across the tops of all those cars no one is ever going to claim. Almost all the trees are bare. Litter drifted on the road, and the windows across from us were dark. I shivered and pulled my jacket closer around me. There’s no way to look at this town and believe our lives could flip back to the way they were two months ago.
