26 - Saturday, January 23

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My weekend, usually so vibrant with jam sessions of the band and my friends, was today filled with an unfamiliar stillness, punctuated by the drumbeat anxiety. Not just my own.

Though my stay in Darby had been but a fleeting five months, it had carved a niche in my heart, while Toronto had receded into the dim corners of memory and felt like a vivid dream now. With those buildings and landscapes, it embraced me with a rather strange sense of familiarity, decorated with memories that fluctuated between the fond and bittersweet to the woefully painful.

It was where I had taken my first steps into adulthood, relished the thrill of first friendships, my first kiss, and the comforting warmth of my mom's food that had always tasted of home. Each street harbored some story, good and bad. But beneath the sheen of happiness still lurked shadows, fragments of a past that clung to me and told of events I longed to bury and forget. Frankly, it was a peculiar day.

When I brought the car to a halt, my gaze found Alex; I studied her, absorbed the anxious way her teeth bit into her lower lip, almost to the point of drawing blood, and the unsteady beat of her fingers against her thigh. It was a motion that usually matched our driving music but was now a frantic, uncoordinated rhythm that spoke clearly of her nerves and added weight to my heart.

My hand found her upper thigh, as instinctive as the breath drawn into my lungs. "Try not to think of the worst, okay? It might turn out better than you expect."

"But if it doesn't?"

"Then just remember that you don't have to stay a minute longer than you want."

Her hand trembled atop mine, her apprehension invisible yet palpable through her every motion, every shared gaze. My fingers curled around hers in a comforting clasp, as if I could squeeze the anxiety out.

"Will you come inside?" she implored. "Please, Kay. At least come with me to the door. I think Gabi should be waiting in the lobby. I swear I'm so anxious I think I'm gonna throw up if—"

"Alex," I interrupted her nervous cascade of words. She had done so much for me, and now the time had arrived for me to muster bravery, to set aside my dread of hospitals and be there for her. "Of course I'll go with you, don't worry."

It was a sight that clawed at the deepest parts of my empathy. She was wracked with a kind of anxiety that had been a stranger to my previous experiences with her, that I had rarely seen before even in myself. Almost as if on the brink of a breakdown. My heart ached with the wish to lift it from her shoulders, to take it all away, and to wrap her up in an embrace where her distress could dissolve, leaving not even the faintest trace.

At least the fresh air helped a little as we eventually left the car. Familiarity engulfed me instantly, countless days and nights that I had invested in the city coming back to me. But this place was different. Almost like a foreboding feeling. Something only my bones seemed to comprehend.

In the lobby, we were immediately accosted by that air, thickened with a putrid stench, that sickening smell of antiseptic that reeked of memories best left untouched. A pall of death seemed to drape the atmosphere, everything jarringly stilled. The strange sensation only mutated, growing ever more peculiar. I also wanted to throw up.

"You actually came." Gabi materialized before us. "You okay? Where's Benj?"

Alex shook her head, her voice quiet. "Owen's. And it's the smell."

Gabi's features clouded with concern. "Right," she exhaled. "Kayla? Why are you so pale? Everything okay?"

Nothing was okay. I'd really tried to hold it back, truly, but in the matter of a second that it took for my brain to flash through every memory this building held, my heart had already lurched into my throat. It blurred the present into nothingness, and the past clawed its way into dominance. I'd tried not to let it, but all that stench reminded me of was what this accursed place had stolen from me, so tangible it seemed born from the very bricks. The mere thought of crossing those cursed doors once more twisted my insides with force so powerful as though invisible hands had seized my guts, wrenching and wringing.

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