I didn’t listen to all of it immediately. I was lying there in bed. I saw that it was going to be long, and I stopped after a few sentences. There was a smell like the hospital. It was like sickness. At first, I thought it was an attachment, but it wasn’t. It was coming from my nose. I got up and took my shower, and I got dressed and went downstairs and had one of my dad’s Granola Squeezes, and went out to my upcar and started to drive to School™.

I listened to the rest while the upcar drove me.

When the upcar settled in the School™ parking lot, I kept staring out the front window. I didn’t want to get out. Kids were running everywhere and pushing each other. Their backpacks were all sparkly in the sun.

I could still smell the hospital in my nose. It wasn’t anything around me. It was her. I stopped breathing, but the smell was still there. I held my breath.

I stared out the window at the School™. Everyone went in through the doors. The leaves on the trees turned red to show I was late. My hand was still on the lift shift. I just left it there, in some weird kind of trance, as if I was waiting there for the right moment to pull back, drop anchor, and fall upward into the sky.