My alarm went off earlier than I wanted it to. If we were being technical, it went off exactly when I set it to go off, but I wanted to sleep in. However, I couldn't snooze it and risk it going off again to wake up Hale, so I drug myself out of bed and into the shower.

I turned up the heat of the water so warm that it left red streaks down my skin. I needed to feel sanitized, a clean that went deeper than my skin. I scrubbed at my skin until I was nearly raw, attempting to ...