Hidden Within

10 | reality

The morning after my parents found out about Sloane, I woke up to my mother bustling around my room at five in the morning.

I'd sat up groggily, wondering what was going on and why she was rummaging through my things so early. When I sat up and rubbed my eyes, my mother merely glanced at me over her shoulder as if she'd expected me to wake up sooner or later.

"Get up," Mom told me, tone indifferent. "Start packing."

"Packing . . .?" I'd repeated. Panic began to fill my chest. I could tell that something was wrong. It wasn't like my mother to spring something like this on me out of nowhere; especially not so early in the morning. "Where are we going?"

"We're not going anywhere," Mom corrected me as I rose from my bed. A suitcase was opened and placed in the center of my room. Absentmindedly, I began tossing clothes and necessities into it, not bothering to make sure the clothes I'd chosen matched or if I was grabbing the right items. I was too distracted, too flustered.

"Your flight leaves at eight," Mom continued, arms crossed over her chest as she watched me gather my things.

I hesitated for a moment, meeting her gaze in the darkness of my room. I couldn't really see her, though the gleam of her eyes was visible enough. I had the feeling my mom couldn't really see me, either. I don't think she looked hard enough. Or bothered to look at all.

"Flight to where?" I asked. At that point, I was scared. Mom was acting strange. Our fight from the night before was still all too fresh in my memory. I was starting to wonder if her behavior was connected to the incident.

Mom didn't respond. Her gaze was pinned to my floor somewhere. She wrapped her arms around her body, giving the illusion that she was holding herself. I wanted desperately for her to wrap her arms around me instead, to hold me close and smooth back my hair while she told me that none of this was real, that she loved me, that everything would be okay.

Instead, all I got was her silence.

"Flight to where?" I repeated. My voice cracked. I sounded as broken as I felt inside.

"Iowa," Mom said finally, voice no more than a whisper. "You're going to spend the rest of the summer in Iowa."

This was news to me. I could feel the panic that had previously been rising in my chest turn into something more, a fear and rage so deep it left me seeing red. As far as I knew, we didn't have any family in Iowa. Iowa was far, far away. I had a suspicion as to why I was being sent there. My thoughts left a bitter taste in my mouth.

"Iowa?" I questioned. "Why?"

"Just finish packing," Mom told me. "We need to leave soon."

"Why?" I asked again, harsher this time. I knew the answer without my mother having to tell me. Still, I needed her to confirm the truth. I needed to hear it from her to make it feel real.

"There's this ranch," Mom explained slowly, sounding choked. "Hillside Farms. They specialize in . . . helping people like . . . you. It's a sort of therapy. They can cure your sickness, Hadley. They stop accepting new patients after today. You need to finish packing. You can't miss your flight."

I couldn't move. My mother was sending me away to conversion therapy. In her eyes, I was sick. I needed treatment. I was nothing more than a patient awaiting her cure. I was broken, wrong, imperfect. My own mother saw me as something that needed to be fixed.

I still don't know exactly when I started crying. I just remember the tears, hot on my cheeks, blurring my vision.

Mom exited my room shortly after that, leaving me alone in the darkness. Time felt like it was no longer passing as I numbly finished packing. I was merely going through the motions. Walking down the stairs to head for the car that morning, I realized that Dad and Reagan were still sleeping. Either they didn't care enough to say bye to me, or they had no idea I was leaving. I wouldn't be surprised if my mother was secretly sending me away.

At the airport, I felt out of it as I went through security and entered my terminal. Everything felt surreal. It was like I was swimming through time, drifting through the here and now. My head didn't feel attached to my body. My feet didn't feel like they were on the ground. I was somewhere else entirely, floating through space, unable to grasp reality.

As Mom and I stood waiting for my flight to board, my mother turned to face me. Her eyes were sad, bloodshot and rimmed with red, glassy as they filled with tears. The sight of her repulsed me. She didn't get to be sad when she was doing such a cruel thing to me. She didn't get to feel bad.

Mom set her hands on my shoulders. They felt heavy, like weights that were holding me down. "I'm doing this to help you, Hadley," Mom had said, as if she needed to clarify this. "To make you better. You have to understand. I'm doing this because I love you."

"If you really loved me," I'd spat, not realizing I'd even spoken, "then you wouldn't be doing this."

By the expression Mom wore, she looked as if  I had just slapped her across the cheek. I didn't have time to linger on the hurt gleaming in her eyes, as I heard my flight number being called. Dragging my suitcase behind me, I turned on my heel and walked off to board my plane. I didn't look back once.

Though I was being sent away to the likeness of prison, I felt more free than ever before.

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a/n: happy new year lovelies! 🥳💜 starting 2021 off right by updating. :) i hope everyone has a safe and happy new years day and 2021 is much brighter in comparison to the shitshow that was 2020.