Bitter (wlw) (teacherxstudent)

seventy-seven

"No offense to my grandma but I don't think I can currently stand more than one night there at the moment. Also, my mom said she has something else to tell me, so that's that"

"She just told you that without any context?"

"Yeah. I don't know, she probably wants to make me feel bad about what happened last time I was there"

"You know you can call me anytime" she kissed the top of my head.

"Of course. I'm gonna be fine" I reassured her, maybe also trying to reassure myself.

The flight definitely gave me less anxiety than the one we took to arrive because I knew what to expect, but if I was really excited back then, I was just sad to be leaving that time. And knowing I had to go home the next day only made it worse. But I was honestly too exhausted to worry about anything, I couldn't even get myself to tell Sam we didn't need a taxi to get home but could just use the subway instead.

"It feels like we left ages ago" she said as we stepped out of the car and found ourselves in front of the building.

"I know, this feels weird" I agreed, my brain still not actually comprehending we were back in New York. "Has it always been this noisy here?"

"I'm pretty sure it has" she chuckled. "Let's get going or we'll just fall asleep standing here"

"Yeah. I'm gonna go to my place because I need to unpack. And you don't get to make comments about it because there's stuff in my case I need for tomorrow"

"I wasn't gonna say anything" she laughed. "I'll come and help, then"

"You don't need to, at least one of us should rest"

"Well, I want to. It'll be quicker that way" she said, and she was probably right.

It only took us something like ten minutes to unpack, and we ended up staying at my place for once. I sometimes forgot that although the flat was ridiculously smaller than Sam's, it was actually comfortable enough to hang out and relax.

And the fact that we were jet-lagged actually turned out to be a good thing because we fell asleep really early, which meant I was more or less fine with waking up early the next day.

"It's gonna be weird to be without you after two weeks of doing everything together" Sam said as we arrived at the station she'd driven me to.

"I'll be back in less than two days, it'll fly by" I reassured her. "I'll text you when I get there"

"Yeah. And call me if you need anything. I'm probably going to be dying in bed all day anyway"

"Okay" I laughed. "Bye, then. I love you" I kissed her, feeling slightly sad.

"I love you too. See you" she kissed me back, and I could tell she was trying to hide how sad she was too.

I didn't know if it was the exhaustion, knowing that I was going because of my grandma and was just staying for a day, being so anxious that I'd just dissociated or a mix of it all but I didn't even feel sad during the train ride until I arrived at the station, I felt kind of numb if anything.

Once I got to my house my parents didn't even pretend to act like they were really happy to see me and all of that scene they'd put on the other times, they both just said hi and went on with their day as if nothing had happened. Which was less annoying, but it did kind of make me sad.

We didn't even have much time until we had to go to the hospital, with other relatives I hadn't probably seen in years. I was happy to see my grandma, and she was happy to see me too, which was enough to make me feel glad I'd gone.