There was nothing living in the hospital that I was trapped in. Everyone was a ghost, not living but not dead either; the only reason we were still here was because we couldn’t stop breathing.

I looked in the sheet of metal bolted to the wall and I couldn’t see myself. I stayed up every night, sobbing under the covers loud enough for someone to hear me this time. I pressed my cheek against the cool windowpane and closed my eyes to the sun outside. I dreamed of drowning and blood and woke up with tears in my eyes because I was still alive. I still tasted the pills in my throat and had to throw up in the toilet. I read the cards that people had sent me and tore up the empty words. I lived in my memories to escape my world.

They let me out into a claustrophobically small concrete courtyard. I didn’t care that twenty-foot tall brick walls fenced me in or that I only had a few minutes to really live. I felt the dew-drenched grass seeping through my blue hospital socks and the breeze gently blowing a few strands of my tangled hair aside. I turned my face up to the sun and smiled, just because I could feel everything again. I ran, just to feel something real beneath my feet. I giggled, just to hear the sound.

I picked the first flower I saw. I gently stroked the teardrop-shaped petals. It was pale purple, with pink in the center like a heart – the most beautiful thing in the world to me at that moment.