We are back at the packhouse before Rosa and I speak again, but this time it’s a mutual need for silence. I can tell she is grieving too, and that we both find comfort in the silent, introspective drive home together.
“What now?” She asks me, when we are seated in the packhouse dining room. It is empty, a rare occurrence for a midday weekend. Numbly, as if it’s a memory from some other life, I realize I have school tomorrow.
My mother wrote me a doctor's note for the past two weeks. Appendicitis. That would feel a lot better, honestly.
“I… don’t know.”
“Not exactly the rigorous and intensive Warrior training I expected to go through,” Rosa says. “Though, I guess it's more intensive, actually.”
I sigh, continuing to chew the same bite of the sandwich that Greta made me, over chewing i
