"Hey, Dara?" 

The frail girl sitting curled up in the big chair felt her eyebrows twitch as she looked over at the door. She sighed softly in irritation, nodding for her nurse to enter. "Hey, hon, how you feeling?" Dara turned her head and averted her gaze back to the window. What kind of , -backwards question is that? Her dead gaze panned from here to there, looking at nothing in paticular, but rather towards the grey sky that seemed to mimic her mood, her thoughts, her very being.

She twitched again when she heard her nurse shake the pill bottle on the nightstand next to the small bed. "You haven't taken your meds." She shook it again, more irritatingly this time. "Dara."

"What?" 

"You haven't been taking your meds. You're falling back into habits." And by habits, she meant eating less, hiding bits of food here and there, even outright refusal. By habits she meant not talking. By habits, she meant killing herself slowly with her own thoughts.

Dara kept quiet and tightened her fists as she kept staring out of the window. The nurse sighed again, and pulled a chair over. "Do you even know my name, Dara?" She gently sat down in front of her, crossing her legs. Dara tightened her jaw, and kept her dead gaze on the window. "My name is Sunhee." Dara kept her stare off of Sunhee. "Listen, Dara, I had a... Friend... Her name was Mishi. I met her when I went to America to get my degree in being a nurse. She was from India, and I had never met anyone so dark, and from that part of the world, so, naturally, I was drawn to her due to the curiosity."

Dara's jaw slowly loosened, and her gaze softened a bit as she listened to her nurse go on.

"I had always been taught that dark-skinned people were dumb and unpure, but Mishi was anything but those things. She was as black as night, but her soul was as white and pure as the garments of the angels themselves," she paused, and looked Dara over to make sure she was listening. Dara tapped her fingers against her leg, indicating for Sunhee to continue. "Anywas, as time went on, she and I got closer and closer, and then one night, we kissed." Dara slowly turned her gaze to Sunhee, and stared at her.

"We tried telling our families but... That didn't go very well. Both of our families disowned us." Sunhee inhaled sharply, and broke the eye contact with her patient. "It was hard on her. Every night, I held her close to me, feeling her body against mine, and she would cry herself to sleep in my arms whispering Hindu prayers to the gods, asking them to forgive her." Dara bit her lip when she heard Sunhee's voice begin to waver. "I watched the beautiful ray of sunshine with the most beautiful, chubby body turn into a skeleton with no light left to give, and," she wiped a stray tear, and sighed, "and she just couldn't take it anymore. One night, she slipped out of bed, and never came back. Wh- when I found her," Sunhee had been completely reduced to nothing but tears as she looked over at Dara again who had unconciously began to cry herself. "She looked like she was just sleeping soundly."

Dara bit her lip harder, trying her best to find the right words of comfort to say, but couldn't find a thing. No amount of searching could help her.

"I know how you feel, Dara. There are days I wake up in the morning, and I can faintly smell Mishi on my sheets, and I can feel her kisses on my skin. I can hear her breathing, and I can see her reflection against the glass door of my shower if I look at the right angle. And I can't lie, I miss her, Dara. I miss her with all my heart. But I helped myself realize that she was not going to come back, and that she would have wanted me to live on in happiness, never to forget her." She suddenly sat up, and wiped her eyes, trying to pick herself back up.

"It's okay to be sad for a bit, but we need to learn how to move on, and live on in happiness, remembering to keep only the happiest memories in our hearts. You deserve that, Dara. Give yourself that chance." And with that, Sunhee gently placed the pill bottle in Dara's lap, stood up, and left. 

Dara let her teary eyes stare down at the bottle before she opened it, and popped one capsule into . 

And suddenly, the birds began to sing outside again.