Even the thought of trying to explain it to my friends feels impossible. How can I explain this bruising ache spreading through my entire body? How can I explain the crushing pressure on my heart, weighing me down to the bottom of the ocean?

How can I explain that I’m no longer the same Karina Ahmed I was just a few days ago? That I’m just a shell of her? Of her bravery, of her boldness?

I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know if I’ll ever know how.

And I don’t know how to be the person they’re expecting me to be.

Walking into school takes more energy than I have, but staying home would be worse. Not that my parents would let me in the first place.

“Karina!” Cora says as soon as I swipe my ID card. I look at her, with her sunny smile, adorable blond space buns, and bright yellow overalls, and my face crumples.

I can’t do this.

“Karina?” Cora repeats, her own face falling as she sees mine. She looks at Nandini in confusion, but I know Nandini doesn’t have an answer either. I haven’t been answering anyone’s messages.

“Sorry,” I mouth and duck my head, slipping into the crowd of students exiting the cafeteria, hoping to elude my friends if they follow me.

I spend my free period in silence, tucked away behind a row of lockers in the history hall. My mind is buzzing loudly with white noise and my eyes are glazed over. I don’t know how many students pass by or who any of them are. Time moves both too fast and too slow.

When the bell rings, I bang my head into the wall by accident, jarred. I rub the back of my skull with a sigh and head to my second period class.

Halfway through AP Physics, my nausea becomes too much to handle. I quietly raise my hand, ask my teacher if I can go to the nurse and slip away with a signed pass.

That’s how I spend the next two periods. Sitting in the nurse’s office trying to stave off an anxiety attack while she asks if she should call my parents.

It means I miss English class. My phone is buzzing in my pocket, but I ignore it. I don’t have an answer for anyone right now.

I leave the nurse’s office during lunch, mostly because if I stay any longer, I’m afraid the nurse really will call home, and that’s the last thing I want.

For lunch, I sit on my own again, finding an abandoned stairway. I stare out a window and wait.

I wait for something to spark to life in my mind—some solution that can fix all this and get rid of the horrible pain infecting my heart.

Nothing comes.