rin

rushed at a dinner table is that n

which was funny. Three years and I got a 2019 Honda, five thousand doll

them something to hold I honestly didn't know what I'd do with them. The mountains had swallowed the city behind me, nothing ahe

e road climbed, and someho

ol, nursing the same glass of wine for two hours because I couldn't afford another. He'd appeared beside me and said, completely deadpan. "These thing

away, in a ceremony that cost more than my entire medical school tu

nd said we were letting things happen naturally. That same month, she'd "helpfully" booked an appointment with a specialist. By year

ips against my neck and I'd lean into him for exactly three seconds before my body remembered it was exha

him what he wanted, I most likely wouldn't be sitting here in a 20

d I adjusted, and tapped t

nk further, came back with less and something at the base of my sp

up straighter. It's wet,

nd stayed there and the car kept moving, kept accelerating with the gradient of the mou

th

ocking me, like the resistance that was supposed to be there had simply ceas

ind me had decided personal space was a concept that didn't apply to mountain roads in the pouring rain. I checked the mirror, couldn't see the

ecognize, hands wrenching the wheel while the backend fishtailed on the slick asphalt. I barely caught it, my whole body was

already going sideways, and the guardrail came up fast. I hit it at the weak jo

here was no road,

on the wheel like that meant something, like holding harder would give me back the control that was already g

ne took the mirror off in a shriek of metal I felt in my back teeth. I was still pressing the brakes, I couldn't stop pressing the

wn the middle, my reflection splitting into two versions, one on each side, and I thought, wildly and briefly, that felt about right. There where two versions of me now.

tilted n

ital corridors and stethoscopes against winter skin. This cold lived past cold, on the other side of it, a full-body assault that hit every nerve ending at once and then shut them down. It came through t

ly. Then I tried the window, the electri

h a slowness that terrified me more than the crash had, it didn't care I was twenty-se

y collarbone and I

ed tonight, the pride, the grief, the rage, I refused to let them see, the

r my head and then E