Starlight | Fillie

Show or Tell?

There was nothing or no one stopping her from getting those medications when she stepped into that pharmacy or when she locked herself up in a hotel room before saying goodbye to the existence as she knew it.

Yet, like the best of miracles, she was still here. Heart pumping; messed up to the core; hurt like ever before; wrecked down to ashes; still... alive like the day she was born.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk. I don't expect you to do so. Just know that everything is okay. You're safe."

Safe? How in the world is this news supposed to comfort her? This is a catastrophe.

The failure of her plan will lead to her dealing with the consequences of her actions. She still has to face all the horrible things people said about her, her secret being out, her parents...

God, her parents. And her siblings. No, all of her damn family, actually. This can't be good.

"You're probably asking yourself how you ended up here."

Not really.

Millie stares at the wall, ignoring his words, mentally drained to think about other things. It is already too much thinking why she is still alive, she doesn't need to know the details of her survival.

Why the fuck should she care, anyway? Someone found her and brought her here. It's not like you have to be a genius to figure it out. 

"The answer is not who took you here. The answer is: should you be anywhere else?" The doctor tells way too naturally, as if the response was granted.

But his words punch her right in the stomach, provoking her breath to miss. This makes turn her head at him.

Yes, she should be somewhere else and certainly not here. Would it be too cynical if she said she expected to find herself six feet underground? Floating in that dark unknown scenario that is death?

In all that she thinks, the fact she is still here can't make any sense. Who did find her? How did they manage to save her? She chose a forgotten-by-God hotel and she was unreachable.

Unless, this is not real life, and this can be considered Heaven. Maybe this was the afterlife.

Her confusion can be read easily by the doctor's eyes. All that he sees is a young woman lost in herself.

"You don't remember what happened, right?" The Doctor asks, his voice not failing to be warm and homey. "Or how did you get here?"

Millie shakes her head but her brain lets elaborate the truth she tries so hard to deny.

There is a moment that is faded but comes in flashes, making her heart sink. It's her, lying on that moquette floor as her sight looks for answers. Unknown men in red everywhere around her, undefined words coming from their mouths, her legs struggling beneath and then...

Him. In a corner, being sustained by someone else. Him looking at her as if he faced his personal Hell, but the reward was Heaven itself. His eyes were full of sorrow but also full of relief.

"Confusion and dizziness are very normal after an overdose. I bet you know everything but you can't put the prices together, right? Like you're living in a giant puzzle that doesn't have all the pieces."

It's incredible how his words are spot on. She seriously can't think straight; whenever she does, millions of doors with different answers open and she loses herself in this intricate labyrinth that is her mind.

She might have all the answers but she can't put them in order or follow a pattern.

All that she recalls is breaking up with Finn and walking to that horrible hotel that, more than once, hosted her breakdowns and her runaways. Both of these memories hurt like an open wound that she will never recover from.