The Coldest Winter

by Brittainy C. Cherry

That was the problem with being fucked up—you missed out on the important things.

I knew I was depressed. That was a given.

Most people thought depression meant lying in bed or sitting in darkness for weeks, but it wasn’t that way for me.

Our new student teacher for this semester.

Teachers who made students read out loud in front of their peers deserved a special place in hell.

I could be a fake friend and tell you what you want to hear, but that’s not us, babe.

trying to cover up my grief by becoming a perfectionist.

I’d never cared before how people wrote words against paper. How they dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s. But now, knowing that maybe someday I could lose all connection to those little things, I took them in more, especially when it came to Mom’s recipe cards.

Thank you for loving your mama when she was too weak to love herself.