@mateosolano
Piper was doing some utterly grueling work in the hospital. She didn’t think working on herself this much could be so exhausting. Every day was a new discovery. Some new uncovered truth or buried memory. Reliving everything that had happened to her, trying to tie it to how she was now was more exhausting than most things she’d done in her life. It was like when someone re-broke a bone to ensure it healed the right way.
Despite all the anguish and difficulty, she was learning. It wasn’t a cure all, she wasn’t immune to old patterns of sarcasm and cynicism. But she felt lighter. She didn’t feel so heavy anymore, like some of the weight of all the secrets had finally lifted. It was week three in the hospital. And after a couple of small visits, she’d finally been allowed to have a three hour off ward pass with Mateo and her girls. She could still only stay on the grounds. But she was excited to see her friend and her daughters. She hadn’t realized just how much what she went through was effecting the way she saw them.
“It’s been a really long road,” she murmured to Mateo while she watched Kaia trudge through the growing grass in the small wooded area. “But I realized a few things, one of them is that I really don’t want to be alone anymore,” it was hard to say. Hard to not follow it up with some sarcastic comment about her loneliness being filled by a bottle of bourbon. But she managed. “I know I’ve been a horrible friend, and that I didn’t really pay a whole lot of attention to you last year, not the way I should have. But I’m here now, if it’s not too late for us to be good friends again.”