I woke at 5:03 a.m. The sun still slumbered in the east while the light scattered everywhere else.
Lizzie has survived things that don't have clean names. A house where silence was survival. A sister who bled out saving her. A world that kept stealing, sedatives, memory, ECT, Emma's camera, Emma herself. What nobody tells you about surviving is that it doesn't feel like winning. It feels like standing in a Denver winter smelling wet pavement and pine sap and knowing you'll miss the simple things most. The things that grew on you. Absorbed you. Became you. Lizzie knows what she has to do now. Not to destroy, though destruction will come. But to stop the bleeding. To honor Emma the only way left. To carry her sister forward into whatever life remains. Emma was always home. And Lizzie intends to find her way back.
First, save yourself. Even if both of you are lying on the floor, bleeding to death. First, save yourself.