I’m trying.
I want them to know I’m trying.
• • •
I thought this was the worst of it.
I remember thinking that clearly — somewhere in the grey middle of that year, lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
It can’t get worse than this.
I’ve hit the bottom.
The only way is through.
• • •
I was wrong.
The worst was still coming.
And I was already so cracked by the time it arrived —
I didn’t see how it would take the little I had left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD
• • •
I’m in the middle of senior year.
Head down. Grades up.
Counting the days until I can leave.
That’s the plan.
The plan is all I have.
• • •
And then I get called to the front office.
I feel it before I even turn down the hallway.
That tightening.
Low and specific, just below my ribs.
My body’s early warning system that has never once been wrong.
Sirens at eleven.
An empty corner at sixteen.
It knows before I do.
