Hiding the Mark

Avery

My raw throat burned with every shallow breath I dragged into my lungs. The hot, stinging tears stopped falling sometime around dawn, leaving my eyes swollen shut and my chest hollowed out. A deep, aching emptiness settled in my ribs. I lay curled on my side in the narrow dormitory bed, staring blankly at the peeling paint on the opposite wall, tracing the cracked edges with my tired eyes.