The day I was discharged was a weekday. The sky was overcast without quite committing to rain — the light a flat, greyish quality that made it hard to feel time moving. Dad had taken a half-day and come to pick me up. He talked most of the way home — about work, about the neighbour downstairs who'd changed their doorbell, about how he'd found a drawing of mine from primary school while sorting through some things, a cat that somehow looked more like a shoe. I laughed. He laughed too. The atmosphere in the car was easy, as if nothing had happened.
Occasionally, mid-sentence, he'd let his gaze shift briefly from the road to me — one second, then back. I noticed each time. I didn't say anything.
Back home, my room was exactly as I'd left it. Books on the desk in their usual places. The curtain pulled halfway. Sunlight finding the corner of the desk through the gap. I set my bag down and sat in the chair for a while. Just sitting. Nothing specific I needed to do, nothing wrong — just the need to be still for a moment, to let the body settle. Like something in me had registered that the last stretch of time had been unusual, and needed a quiet interval to come back from it.
From downstairs, the sounds of the kitchen. Pans on the hob. The particular quality of sound that's only there in a place you actually live.
I went back the next day.
Nobody made anything of it — a few classmates asked where I'd been, I said sick, they nodded and moved on. Ashly had put together copies of the notes from the days I'd missed, clipped neatly, left on my desk. "Take your time," she said. "No test for a while yet."
The morning's classes ran at their regular pace. I sat and followed along, taking notes in sequence, my mind doing what it was supposed to do — present, focused, dealing with what was in front of it. I realised it had been a while since I'd felt that. Not the agitated kind of alertness, not the saturated kind that came with too much happening at once. Just ordinary, functional attention. Solid.
After the first afternoon class, Ashly turned her chair around and rested her arms on my desk. "How are you feeling? Really."
"Better."
"You don't have to push through if you're not ready."
"I really am." And I meant it. "Being in that hospital was suffocating. This is better."
She made a face. "Fair. You slept through the most dramatic week of class gossip, though. You missed everything."
I smiled. "Tell me."
She launched into it — a classmate who'd had some spectacular exam confusion, a teacher whose mood had shifted sharply without explanation, one thread after another, easy. I listened, replied occasionally, ate lunch. There was something I was holding onto, the word for which I couldn't quite find: normal. Just the simple fact of being in a normal room, doing a normal thing, and having it feel exactly like that.
At lunch, we joined the canteen queue with our trays. I hadn't decided what I wanted, just scanning the display case as we got closer. Near the end, I spotted something — egg and tomato stir-fry. Something in me noted it briefly: actually, I'd like some of that. But we were almost at the front and the portion left was small, so I didn't say anything.
Ashly, standing beside me, spoke first. "Oh — do you want the tomato and egg? I got an extra portion, I'm not really feeling it today. Here."
She slid it onto my tray. Already moving toward the tables.
I looked at the serving. Then at her.
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't mention it." She was already walking.
I followed her and sat down. Set the tomato and egg in front of me, picked up my chopsticks, and took a bite. The flavour was right — exactly the level of salt I liked.
I didn't dwell on it. I ate, listening to Ashly talk about a drama she'd been following, how the plot had gone somewhere frustrating, how a particular character was making decisions that didn't hold together. I listened and replied and the meal went by.
On the way home after school, I walked alone. I passed the bookshop I sometimes went into — not particularly feeling like it, but I glanced at the window display. In the corner, I could see a spine. A book I'd wanted to buy some time ago and then simply forgotten about. Just sitting there, facing out.
I pushed the door open and went in. Bought it.
At the register, the person put it in a bag. I took it and stood outside for a moment.
A book in a window. I saw it and went in and bought it. That happens. It's a shop — they put things in the window to be seen. I happened to look at the right moment. I happened to want it. They happened to have stock. All of these things happen simultaneously every day across any number of shops and any number of people. This was one of those times.
I put the book in my bag and kept walking.
That evening Dad made red-braised pork — "to celebrate," he said. He'd been practising this dish, he said, and this time should be better than last. I tried it and told him it was good. He was pleased, and gave me another piece.
After dinner, I sat in my room and worked through some of the missed notes, filling in the gaps. Outside, the sky had gone dark. The streetlights were on. Occasionally a car went past below.
I set the pen down and leaned back in the chair. Let the day replay.
The tomato and egg, the bookshop. And Ashly's words, the other day, about the restaurant timing. Three things. Each one had its own explanation. Each one in isolation was normal. Each one happening on the same day — that was just how days went sometimes. That was just coincidence accumulating in a way that felt significant but wasn't.
Newly discharged. Being sensitive was understandable.
I picked up the pen again and went back to the notes, and held the thought down.
But there was one thing I didn't say out loud. One thing I didn't write down. I just kept it where it was, somewhere that wouldn't be immediately lost.
At lunch today, in the canteen queue, I had thought about the tomato and egg without saying anything. I had not spoken the thought.
Ashly cannot read minds.
She had no reason to know.