Chapter 4 - The Cold Drive Home
The interior of Hannah’s small hatchback was freezing. Rain drummed steadily against the windshield as she sat in the driver's seat, her hands trembling against the steering wheel. She plugged her dead phone into the car charger and waited for the screen to flicker back to life.
When the phone booted up, it buzzed immediately with notifications.
There were three missed calls from her mother, one text from her brother, and a message in the family group chat.
Her brother’s text read: Mom says you threw a tantrum and left. Thanks for ruining the mood. Dad’s pissed.
Hannah stared at the glowing text message, feeling a strange detachment. For years, she had bent herself into impossible shapes to fit into this family. She had minimized her pain, apologized for her chronic illness, rescheduled her life around their expectations, and constantly sought their validation. And yet, when she was literally trapped, sick, and vulnerable, her suffering was viewed merely as a mood ruiner—an aesthetic flaw in their picture-perfect evening.
She started the engine, turned the heater to maximum, and pulled out onto the quiet, rain-slicked road.
The drive back to her apartment took twenty minutes. The heater slowly blew warm air into the cabin, but Hannah couldn't stop shivering. Her body was exhausted from the hours of abdominal cramps and stress, but her mind was fiercely clear.
When she finally pulled into the parking lot of her apartment building, she parked in her designated bay and turned off the engine. She sat in the dark for a long moment, listening to the soft tick-tick-tick of the cooling engine.
She walked up the stairs to her third-floor flat, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. Her apartment was small, quiet, and clean. It smelled of lavender and faint peppermint tea. There were no booming voices, no judgmental eyes, no demands for performance.
May you like
She dropped the plastic bag containing her ruined trousers directly into the hallway trash bin. She walked into her bathroom, turned on the shower to the hottest setting, and stripped away the damp bath towel and coat.
As the hot water poured over her head, washing away the cold rain and the terrible lingering humiliation of her aunt’s upstairs bathroom, Hannah leaned her head against the wet tiles and let out a single, shuddering sob. But it wasn't a cry of helplessness. It was the release of something old and heavy that she had been carrying for far too long.
