Chapter 7 Home

IVY's POV

I got home on Thursday night and found my mother asleep on the couch still in her scrubs, her shoes placed neatly beside her as if even exhaustion could not break her routine. The television was on mute, casting soft light across her face, and the room felt like it had been waiting for me without moving for hours.

I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her breathe in a slow, uneven rhythm that looked heavier than sleep should ever feel. Her hand rested near her lap, fingers slightly curled, as if she had fallen asleep mid-thought and never finished it.

I moved closer and pulled the blanket over her shoulders, careful not to wake her. She didn’t stir, not even slightly, and that alone said more than anything else in the room.

The kitchen was already clean, counters wiped, dishes done, everything placed back where it belonged. A small note sat near the stove that simply said rice in fridge, eat, love you, written in her familiar rushed handwriting.

I opened the fridge and took out the rice, heating it without really thinking about it. The sound of the microwave filled the apartment for a short moment, then disappeared again into silence.

I ate standing at the counter because sitting felt unnecessary, like rest was something I could not afford to fully enter. My eyes drifted toward the living room again where she still slept in the same position.

On the wall beside the kitchen, the old calendar hung slightly crooked, marked with shifts and reminders that never seemed to leave enough empty space. Every square looked occupied before the month even began.

After I finished eating, I washed the plate slowly, letting the water run longer than needed, watching it swirl down the drain as if it could carry something else away with it.

The bills were still on the counter where I had left them earlier in the week. Electric. Medical. Rent reminder. They sat there quietly, unchanged, the kind of presence that did not need noise to feel heavy.

I didn’t open them again. I already knew what they would say.

Instead, I checked the account on my phone. The number stayed the same, flat and unmoving, as if it had no intention of becoming anything else. Three hundred and twelve dollars. Rent due in nine days.

Behind me, my mother shifted slightly in her sleep, making a small sound that didn’t fully form into anything. I turned slightly, watching her for a moment longer than I meant to.

Her face looked older when she was asleep. Not in a dramatic way, just in the way exhaustion settles into someone who has stopped expecting rest to feel complete.

I turned off the kitchen light and moved quietly down the hall to my room. The apartment darkened behind me in pieces as I passed each doorway.

In my room, I closed the door without locking it. The walls were thin enough that privacy was always more of an idea than a reality.

I sat on the edge of my bed and let my hands rest loosely in my lap. The silence here was different from the rest of the apartment, less shared, more personal, but still not mine alone.

My phone buzzed once on the bed beside me. I didn’t pick it up immediately.

When I finally looked, it was a message from Maya asking if I was okay.

I stared at it for a moment, then typed back I’m fine.

I pressed send and placed the phone face down.

That answer felt automatic now, like something I said before I even decided to say it.

I lay back on the bed without changing, staring at the ceiling where a faint crack ran across the paint in a thin line. It looked like something that had been there for a long time without anyone deciding to fix it.

My thoughts drifted to the apartment behind the wall, to my mother still sleeping in her scrubs, and to the quiet way she had folded herself into exhaustion without ever calling it anything else.

I thought about how long she had been living like this, not just working hard, but staying in motion because stopping felt more dangerous than continuing.

The phone buzzed again, but I didn’t check it this time.

Instead, I turned onto my side and pulled the blanket up slightly, though I wasn’t cold.

Sleep did not come quickly. It arrived in pieces, slipping in and out without fully settling.

At some point, I stopped trying to force it and just lay there listening to the faint sounds of the apartment. Pipes shifting, the refrigerator humming, my mother’s breathing moving through the wall like something steady but worn.

Eventually, my eyes closed again, and when they did, there was no clarity in it, only fragments of thought that never fully formed into anything I could hold onto.

And somewhere between being awake and not, the night continued without asking permission.