Chapter 9

Mikalina

Istayed inside the rest of the day, not because I was afraid, but because I felt… off. Different even.

It was so strange to explain or even try to describe to someone. I was still me, still felt like I was the same person, but it was almost as if a switch had been turned on, one I had no idea about, didn't even know existed.

I swore everything was crisper, clearer. The smells of the flowers in the garden, the scent of my tea, the warmth from the steam rising up from the mug.

I swore I could hear the kids playing outside as if I stood right beside them. I didn't know what was wrong with me, maybe just my nerves, a very overactive imagination.

I tried to busy myself by calling my mother. She hadn't answered, and a part of me had been relieved. That couldn't be normal or even healthy—to not want to converse with your parents, knowing there really was no connection there, no solid foundation.

Weariness settled in my bones, and I rubbed my eyes, feeling tired all of a sudden.

For the last hour, I'd been looking over my finances, seeing how much I had saved versus how long I could realistically stay here.

Enough, but not for me to make this my home.

I didn't want to be broke by the time I went back to the States, and at that moment when I thought about actually going home—or what I'd always considered home but maybe never felt like that—left a sour taste in my mouth, a knot in the pit of my stomach.

Home was where your heart was… or something like that.

I could've told myself that I was looking over my finances and all of that because I needed to just go, to understand I could still be independent when I went back to America. But the truth was deep down I knew I was looking over everything, because I didn't want to go.

"I'm losing my damn mind," I said to no one, alone in this little kitchen, feeling isolated, although I really wasn't.