NOTES by K. A. Bryant

Author:K. A. Bryant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lakehouse Publishing llc
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

It took a little longer to dress than usual despite popping two painkillers set out the night before on the dusty cluttered night table. Confirmed, they really took longer to take effect and the relentless, nagging, piercing pain robbed her sleep. The sleep deprivation nearly drove her and everyone around her mad. It was a cruel dichotomy. The relationship between painkiller and sleeping pill. Where one failed, the other triumphed but the necessity for them left the user fragmented in their wake and always needing more.

Curled beneath the lonely blankets, she imagines that her life is normal, ideal, and pleasant. Eyes closed, she imagines herself taking time off from work and shuffling up the steps of her mothers modest brown brick townhouse in Nottingham greeted by a warm concerned glare. She can feel her mother’s soft warm arm wrap around her back and support her as she steps inside the warm sun drenched home, met with fragrant lavender potpourri in the crystal dish on the hall table. Pictures of she and her mother dot the narrow hall on both sides and their footsteps are dulled by the thick runner rug beneath their feet leading to the bedroom. Her childhood bedroom preserved, frozen in time with rows of bedazzled diaries lined up on the book shelf beside a complete set of Nancy Drew series books with dog-eared brown pages. Faded hand-sized periwinkle wallpaper with white background peeked out between the dresser and bookcase. Every inch of it was smothered by drawings with the most sophisticated signature she could muster at nine years old.

The air was musty, the room warm and cozy. She is lovingly tucked into the creaky bed then spoon-fed chicken soup beneath a patch quilt and imagines herself fading gently into sleep serenaded by her mothers humming while gently stroking her hair. An extraordinary, powerful medicine… love.

But beneath her blankets, there was no hum and she hasn’t heard her mothers hum in years. Three to be exact. The moment Arden left, she was truly alone. Roughly, she wiped the tears away and shoved back the covers fo face her cold reality. The flat smelled of stale pizza and their cardboard boxes stacked on the dresser. Gratefully, her barefoot found the edge of the area rug barely sticking out beneath the bed and she shoves her mobile phone with her foot, picked it up and read the text. Jean raised the phone to hurl it, squeezed it tightly instead, then tossed it onto the rumpled bed.

A quick shower and tussle of her hair, she pulled on a warm form fitting black shirt, jeans and thick, tan, speckled boot socks. She grabbed her favorite thick knit scarf, swung it around her neck and pulled on her jacket. The fat pill bottle rattled as she dropped it into her black leather backpack style purse. She snatches it off of the dresser and there it was, staring at her. A page of parchment-like paper with rough edges. She slid it into the drawer,

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