If I showed signs of a fever, my mother simply stood in the doorway with her arms tightly folded. She would ask if I was truly sick or if I was merely trying to avoid my responsibilities for the day. By the time I turned eighteen, I had mastered the unspoken rules of the house. I knew I had to need less, want less, and find a way to hurt without making a sound.
So, as the ache intensified, I lowered my gaze back to the worksheet on my desk and forced my pen to keep moving across the page. Mr. Garrison was standing at the whiteboard, explaining complex equations to a room full of seniors who had long since stopped pretending to care. It was a cold December morning in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and the classroom radiators were clanking loudly while filling the room with a dry, metallic heat.
A few students had their heads resting on their arms, and I could hear the rhythmic tapping of a pen against a notebook somewhere behind me. Outside the window, the sky was a flat, heavy gray that promised a thick layer of snow by the time school let out for the day. I looked down at the math problem in front of me, which consisted of two fractions and several variables.