Cosima doesn't know she had it coming until she does.

She sighs, plugs at her nose tube. How is this happening?

It feels like the world turned flat. Like the sun is moving around the earth. Like the glaciers and mammoths are back. Maybe even the dinosaurs.

That would be fun, though, dinosaurs. As long as they don't try to eat her. She's got enough eating on her as it is.

It feels all wrong.

"Cosima? Sweetie? Please open the door?"

There's rapping, whispering.

I can't get her to come out, Harold, she's been in there for an hour. I don't know If she's breathing. What are we gonna do, Harold, we need to do something, I am calm, why would you say that, it doesn't help...

Cosima inhales, closes her eyes. She put her glasses on the nightstand, which is full of clutter (not for very much longer). As she exhales, opening her eyes the world is all wobbly and blurry around her. A smile tugs at her lips. It doesn't quite make it. She doesn't quite make it.

She cannot believe this is happening. To her. Of all people.

Maybe it was self-produced, in a way. Reading up on that Fitzgerald girl with an almost unhealthy fascination.

Autoimmune disorder NFC. A file analysis by Doctor Aldous Leakie.

It was a nasty thing – cysts growing from uterus to lung, causing bloody coughing fits, trouble with breathing and – in the one in a million case of Jennifer Fitzgerald – death.

Cosima ate it all up. The weekly updates on the blog. The book Leakie published the week before Jennifer passed away. The trial to get the book off the market and Doctor Leakie into prison after Fitzgerald's death. She couldn't stop thinking, couldn't stop talking about it.

And then.

And then.

"Cosima? Please. Your father.."

She turns her head, presses her ear into the pillow. She doesn't need to listen to this. It's not like she'll get any new information out of it.

Her father – because calling him dad would be weird, you only do that with someone you are really familiar with; someone who just made you is whom you call father - won't come. He didn't bother to come home six months ago, when it all started. Why bother now?

Cosima inhales, exhales, grabs for the brochure.

To be honest, it doesn't even look that bad. There are two and four-bed-bedrooms. Attached bathrooms with tubs and showers. They have a pool and a playground (which is kinda comical considering that the minimum age is 13, but maybe that's just to give them every possibility; after all, this is what this is all about). There's even a little terrace on the roof, for star and bird watching. And the library looks great, with shelves that are so high you need a ladder to reach them.

Yet. Still.

Something like this should be her choice, right? It's her life. She's 16. It should be her decision.

However nice that place really is, it will probably never feel nice to Cosima. Simply because it was forced on her. And that's not how her home should come to her. It should reach her by choice.

"Okay, Cosima. I will call the key service now, alright?" We'll take that off your pocket money is left unsaid.

Cosima exhales, deeply. She gets up from the bed, opens the windows and tries to fan out the stench of weed with her pale hands.

"I'm coming, mom, okay? I'm coming."
Somehow, calling the woman who plans on sending her away for her impending death 'mom' feels very wrong right now. But then. What can she do?

Her mom – or maybe, she should call her mother now – doesn't drive her.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart", she says as she watches her daughter get into the taxi. Even though Cosima makes quite a show out of it, coughing and moving slowly, it is not her mom – mother – who comes to help her at least, but the taxi driver. And that's how she knows.

Her mother won't come to visit her. She won't call her. She won't write. Cosima is already dead to her.

The sun is shining into Cosima's face as they drive in complete silence. Putting the headphones with the laptop in the suitcase was a stupid idea. But then she'd thought her mother would drive her. And talk to her.

The sun is shining and people are out, enjoying themselves. Friends, family.

Cosima fingers her tube, adjusts the placement. It doesn't really help the caving feeling of her chest.

They arrive at lunch time. The birds are chirping, but that's about all the Disney charm the huge red brick house has. It looked nicer in the brochure.

The driver makes a move towards the building. She stops him. "I can take it from here."
"You sure?"

Cosima nods.

She might not be able to choose the home she stays in, but at least she will choose the time she enters it.

Or so she thinks.

Something drops from the brick wall fence with a loud thump. "You're Cosima, yes?"