Her stomach felt sick. The only thing she could think about was home. Her friends, her school, her own house. Her parents. She never knew that being homesick made you literally sick. She typically wasn't one to be sad, she was just the one who was constantly making jokes and running around so that no one would try to look any deeper.

Yet even now, her pillow was damp with the tears of several months that hadn't had a chance to escape. She never cried. It felt wrong somehow. She was scared someone would come in and see, but she had the door locked and music playing so that if anyone tried, she would play it off as forgetting she locked it, and that would give her enough time to get herself in order.

She couldn't think of a valid reason why her homesickness was a secret, but she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone. She just wasn't the type. She never cried.

The anguish grew within her, it was a necessity now. She stood. Her stomach turned as she stood upright. She slid her shoes on, grabbing her purse and unpacked suitcase. She slipped out the door of the temporary worn down group home, and made it to the train station.

Her eyes stayed glossed, deadpan, and wide. However, her lips held a slight relieved smile. Her thoughts of home shed the light of comfort. She rode from the city, through the countryside, and finally, she arrived in her hometown.

A relieved smile there was, and scurrying legs. She saw home, and her smile grew. She paused at her front door, reaching for the knob before coming out of her trance. In her mind, everything was there. She reached for where the knob should've been, but there was air and beneath, a pile of dust and bricks. She walked to the middle of the remnant among plucked flesh flowers, sat down, then lay down. She stared at the sky, then dry-retched a sob. She had been counting, two weeks exactly since the tragedy and death.