QUOTE : ...she could smell her mother's skin, her lotion, her perfume-- her essence. She missed her so much. She clawed at her pillow, wanting to cry, but tears never came, just a swirling riptide of feeling--anger, abandonment, the fear of being alone, and the weight of the emotional millstone still tied around her neck, submerging her further into the murky depths of stinging, biting solitude. She wished she could wail all night. Instead she curled up in the darkness of her bedroom, listening to her racing heartbeat, which eventually slowed, like the ticking of a clock unwound.