“It's that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore.”

I am so suggestable, singing The Sundays, on a Sunday, and feeling that soreness in my eyes because, as usual, they picked up my daughter, and took her away for another week.

“Here’s where…” I run the water over my face to ease the sting, then spit the water away from my mouth. “…the story ends.”

There’s blood in the shower tray again. I must remember to rinse it down after. The poor, dilapidated thing could do with a scrub. Knowing I should put on gloves, and get going is one thing, but trying to perform the mental gymnastics just to start that damned process is exhausting.

The black mold is back. The closet sized room doesn’t have enough ventilation to keep it at bay for long, and my landlord has found fifteen different ways to avoid paying for it to be painted with decent, water-resistant paint. Its current coat is desiccating; cracked and peeling away from the wall, dry, yet dripping with sweat.

The cabinet needs replacing. Its hinges creak and wobble, threatening to drop the mirrored door. Excess water has scratched and marred the mirror, de-silvering it with dull marks that sketch a grim scene of wirey brambles overgrowing a sharp, iron, graveyard fence. A sketch of a man folds his arms and forever throws his head back laughing at me, wide mouthed.

The old shower tray had rotten away the supporting plywood until a big man like me should have fallen through to the dog groomers below. When I step near the new shower, the floorboards and plastic façade sinks down when I step near it. The replacement tray was smaller but never filled the gap.

I often wonder if I could slip through the crack and die in the floorboards. My flight of fancy never lasts long, before I remember my allergy to the dander of dogs, and as much as I would enjoy the puppy watching portion of my haunt, I would be put off by the irritation of rats scratching and gnawing at my bones. What a terrible racket.

I turn off the water.

The clutter of broken things gathering in the corner needs to be cleared away, and the sealant around the tray redone; sealant was never applied around the shower dial. A steady heartbeat of water still falls from the dial down to the shower tray for a time, after. The beat slows.

Reaching down to the floor reveals an odour, infecting the plush shower mat that covers the gap. I stroke the tousled ends to ease the mat, but feel the grime of the room seeping into me. I pat the carpet down and move to leave, instead I retreat to the shower. Three frantic attempts to close the stubborn door.

Turning the temperature to max and nozzle to high pressure, I wait for the comforting knife-jabs of heat that follow.

“Ohhh, here’s where, the story ends.”

My first kiss had an identical twin sister. In a weird little twisted triangle, I actually started with a crush on the one who didn't kiss me, but ended pretty tangled up in the other one.

It ended with me settling in with her best friend.

Twisted little triangle, indeed.

From somewhere inside the fiery wreckage of that fiasco with the twins, I plucked some wisdom. My own little souvenirs from my visit to what certainly must have been adjacent to a circle of hell. Firstly, I learned that a dude named George was an asshole. He was pretty keyed up to throw down, but I laughed at him and turned my back. Turns out he had a thing for the girl who kissed me. Sorry, George. I never forced her to hands-free transfer to me her Mystery Mix Now & Later in the backseat.

Second, I learned that braces aren't awesome. Later, I learned that braces really suck for a different kind of kissing, if you catch what I'm throwin.

Third, I found that love finds us, we don't find it.

Love has found me a few other times throughout my life, and sometimes it was good. Other times, it was good for a while. On occasion, it was bad, but even before it went ugly, it was beautiful.

Those twins remind me that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Two girls, identical in every physical way, but so very different. Two girls is probably one too many; life aint everything Penthouse Forum promised it would be.

One sister was kind and gentle, the other was all edges and angles.

When the edgy one kissed me, it cut.

Decades later, when I see her picture from time to time, I smile.

I hardly even notice the taste of a little blood.

Alone. Surrounded by people. With strange eyes and hidden intentions. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman shrugged her heavy backpack onto her shoulders as she searched for somewhere to sit, somewhere to lay her head. The ferry was filled to brimming, as people milled about, some heading to cabins, those with cheap tickets scanning the common areas for somewhere to sink to the floor. Somewhere they might be able to snatch a few hours of precious sleep, if the seas weren't too rough, if they could keep the harsh flicker of the fluorescent light from permeating their eye-lids.

Already territory was being claimed and defended - hostile expressions warding off any who sought a spot too close to the first settlers. Even spaces further away were full. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman had been one of the final passengers to step aboard, so there was nowhere for her to go.

The boom of the ferry horn ripped through the air and she felt it shudder through her as the mooring lines were cast off - and the great, hulking vessel left the dock. Piraeus was bathed in the lazy golden sunlight of the evening, softening the edges of the cityscape and lending it a romantic aspect. She almost longed to be back on land - rather than amongst this territorial rabble, but the ferry was heading out to sea and unless she jumped into the frothy, murky depths, there was no-where else to go until morning. The decks were mostly empty now, but the wind bit at her hair and whipped sea spray through the air. Even so high above the water.

She needed somewhere quiet and dry, somewhere as yet unclaimed. She waited until the sun had snatched the last light from the sky and the stars had winked into view. Then crept towards the cabins. To the warm, quiet dry corridors. Somewhere she could roll out her sleeping mat and close her weary eyes.

A place not too far from the door to the deck, that she might be able to get out quick if she needed to, but not too close to the common areas, that there would be many people walking past. The hall was empty and she was soon spread out, grinning at her own cleverness at finding somewhere to rest her head. She was between two cabin doors, tucked as close to the wall as possible, so there was still room to walk past her.

She was just drifting off to sleep, when sounds filtered through. Little yelps. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman startled awake and sat up. Was someone in trouble? She listened carefully - the sounds unabated. Her eyes turned round when she realised they were sounds of pleasure, rather than of pain. She could have moved, she should have moved. But she stayed - and listened as an entire soundtrack of desire played out, to the last shuddering groan.

She left the ferry in the morning but the memory stayed with her. A lasting souvenir.

"Remember children," my adopted mother tells my adopted sisters and I, "when you help other people, they are more likely to help you when you in turn need help."

I am with my adopted family, my mother and my two sisters. We are in the living room of our house, sitting on the plush sofas with gold edges, talking. We are beside the big window that has a lively view of the woods outside our house, woods I am very familiar with. I like talking to my family. Mostly. There is something about it that makes me slightly desolated. But I don't know why. My family is nice.

But I'm sad. I'm so beyond sad. I'm always sad, and I don't know why. There must be some kind of chemical imbalance in my brain. Well, whatever. My mother has spent enough money on me already. Money is precious. I don't need her spending more money on getting me therapy and medication and all of that. I just need to deal with my sadness all by myself, even though it's so great, even though it's so terrible. I am stronger than they think I am. I have to be strong. No matter how hard it is.

"That makes sense," my sister Anabella responds. "Gratitude is a very strong emotion, and it can come in very handy." Anabella is very beautiful, because of the complicated skincare routine she does each day, using all-natural, fair trade products.

"Exactly," my other sister Riviera agrees. "When people in a society all owe each other, that makes the society more tight-knit, and they become more able to withstand adversity and obstacles, ultimately benefitting the individual." Riviera is very smart. It shows through in the way she talks, in what she says, in everything about her. She reads lots of books and absorbs so much knowledge from them.

Compared to these two girls, I cannot help but feel as if I'm inadequate. I'm not pretty. I'm not smart. I'm not able to do anything special. I'm just a normal girl. I don't know what I'm able to give to this family. I don't know what I am able to give to this town. I can only try my best. And this sinks down heavy into me. Because it's never enough, not truly. My best is never enough. My existence is never enough. I'm not worth all the resources that get wasted on me. There are so many people who are so much more worthy.

"That's right," mother tells us. "When the group is doing well, the group can take care of you better. We are social beings, us humans. And social interaction is all about give and take. The more you can give, the more you can take."

"You only get what you give," Anabella declares. "Those who can give more can get more."

"Exactly," mother agrees. My adopted mother is a very wise woman. She has so much knowledge. And because she has so much knowledge, she is able to do very well for herself and her family, she is able to thrive in this corrupted world. She has a large house that she has bought, filled with many pretty things, and she was able to take me in as well.

She has raised me since I was a newborn. I almost don't remember my biological parents. Though I suppose that's a good thing. They gave me up. They probably didn't want me. My adopted mother has done so much to take care of me, I really shouldn't be missing people I barely remember. But I do. I miss them so much. I don't know why I miss them, I don't know what I miss. But the absence of my parents sits heavy in my chest, in my throat, in my gut, all the time. I don't know how to escape this feeling.

I feel as if something vital and integral to who I am has been ripped from me. I feel as if I am walking around with an emptiness in my chest, in my stomach, in my throat. I feel as though I am walking around with an emptiness in my soul. As if it's all not mine. As if all the pieces of me are all not mine. My life is not mine. Nothing is mine.

I feel inhuman. I feel unliving. I feel nonexistent yet horribly, horribly, intolerably existent at the same time. As if I am some horrible, wretched beast made of a slime that is too disgusting to be real and too tangible to be fake. I am a hollow shell. I am nothing yet I am some thing. I am a thing.

"What do you think, little Zia?" Anabella asks me.

"I think you guys are very wise," I respond to her. "I'm learning a lot, listening to you guys talking."

"That's good," my mother tells me. "The more you learn, the more you'll be able to fulfill your role in society."

"Thanks," I tell her.

"So, what are some ways you can build gratitude within the people in your life?" mother asks us.

"We can give them things," Riviera suggests. "A debt of a material nature is probably the hardest debt to pay back, especially if they do not have much access to resources."

"Yes," Anabella cuts in, "and they'll be trying to make up the difference in all sorts of other ways, this is a great way to build long term loyalty."

"Loyalty is a very important resource," I say. "You never know when you're going to need it."

We keep on talking, the four of us, until we see the sun set outside. It is a glorious, burning orange colour that fades out into gold higher up in the sky. But it's more than colour. It is so much more than colour, so beyond colour, that it isn't even colour at all but rather pure emotion. It fills me with a sense of wonder. It almost feels like home, feels like belonging, feels like all of these feelings that are denied to me. I almost cry with joy as I look out at the sunset in silence, along with the rest of my family.

"That's beautiful," Riviera comments, a high sort of awe in her voice.

"Look at the colours," mother says. "Red, orange, yellow. So very vibrant and bright."

"It's glorious," I agree.

It's dinner time after that, and we gather in the large dining room. I bring all the bowls of food up to the table.

"Thank you, Zia," mother tells me. I smile at her. She's so nice. I tell myself that she's nice. I tell myself that she appreciates me, she appreciates what I do for her, she appreciates what I do for the whole family. Though it's not enough, it's never enough to make up for all the things she has done for me.

I sit down at my own spot at the large, intricately carved, polished wooden table. I sit down in front of my shimmering silver place mat and give myself a healthy heaping of the vegetable and beef stew that we cooked together yesterday. The food is good. The food is always good. But there is a part of me that feels almost guilty for eating it, I don't know why. It feels criminal, the act of giving myself food. Although there's plenty of food to go around. There is always plenty of food to go around.

We keep talking as we eat. We're a close-knit family. We talk whenever we get the chance to. I try my best to keep a cheerful expression and tone. I try my best to not let anyone see what's going on inside of me. I'm in such a bright and cheerful room with such bright and cheerful people. I should be nothing but bright and cheerful myself, so that I can at least pretend to fit in, so that I can at least pretend to belong.

And they're none the wiser. They don't suspect that I don't belong here. They don't suspect that I don't belong among them. And I'm such a liar and such a traitor but they would be so, so disappointed to know the truth. I absolutely dread disappointing them.

"Take some more stew," my mother tells me, "there's plenty to go around."

———

I'm in my room. The door is locked from the inside. It locks from the outside too, which is a bit scary but it's that way with all the doors in the house. I'm glad that I'm alone right now. It means that I don't have to pretend. I don't have to put on a mask and pretend to be happy in front of everyone else. That's a huge burden lifted from my shoulders, though the heavy weight of sadness is still there, it's always there, and I don't know what to do with it.

Being alone most of the time would kill me even more, and I'm very genuinely glad that I have plenty of company, but having some time to be alone is welcome.

So I lie in my bed. I lie in my soft bed, under my soft blankets, and I cry. I look up at the ceiling and I let my tears fall freely. Why I'm crying I have no idea. I have no idea why I'm crying but I'm crying anyways. And I do know why I'm crying.

I know that it's because it's all wrong, it's all so terribly wrong. Everything is wrong. My life is wrong. Who I am as a person is wrong. It's all twisted, it's all corrupt, it's dark and thorny and it's not right. The thorns of everything I am inside are piercing my flesh, piercing my organs, piercing my capillaries until my entire body is bleeding, my mind is bleeding, my heart is bleeding, my soul is bleeding.

I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding. Everything inside me is bleeding. And everything I am is bleeding. My existence is slipping through my fingers. I am slipping through my fingers. I am losing more and more of myself. I am leaving myself until there is nothing of me left. But I'm here, I'm here, I'm irrevocably here at the same time. And I can't escape, I can't escape, I can't escape.

I am no-one. I am nothing. I am less than no-one. I am less than nothing. And I cannot ever be anything because everything I am is twisted. Everything I am is nothing. Is less than nothing. Everything I am is wrong and everything about me is wrong and it's so wrong and it's so wrong and it's all wrong and my whole life is so wrong.

I don't know why I feel like my life is wrong. But I know it is. There is no reason to think this. There is no reason for me to hate this life that I'm living, no reason to be disturbed by it. But I am disturbed. I am so disturbed. But, my life is fine. I go to school, and the teachers are nice, and the kids are nice. I get decent grades. They're not extremely good but they're pretty good. I have a few people I talk to at lunch time. I go home and my home life is good. My mother is nice. My sisters are nice. They all treat me well. Everyone treats me well. So why do I feel like this?

It must be because I am deeply horrible, I am deeply ungrateful, I am deeply unsalvageable. There are so many people who have it worse than me. There are so many people who have it so, so much worse than me. So why can I not be happy with what I have? Why can I not be grateful for everything? It's all going right. It's all going so very right and yet it's all going wrong. It must be because of me that it all feels so very wrong. It must be because of some fault of my own.

I have so many faults. I have so many flaws. I can't sleep at night, I'm lazy, I'm ungrateful, I can't be happy. I'm not pretty or kind or a good student or outgoing or brave or clever or wise or anything. I'm not athletic, I'm not coordinated, I'm not organized. It's all not enough. Everything I do and everything I am is all not enough. It's all not enough and I'm so inadequate and I'm so wrong.

I'll never be enough. I'll never be enough. No matter what I do, no matter who I be, it's all not going to ever be enough and I'm going to not ever be enough. Because the thing that is wrong with me is intrinsic. It's inherent. It's so deep that it reaches its scarred, infected tendrils down to my very core, through my blood, through my bone marrow. It's so all-reaching that it claws and grasps and wraps around every part of me. Around my throat. Around my eyes. Around my fingers and my toes and my stomach and me knees. It is both invading me and residing with me as if it was meant to be there always. I guess it was meant to be there always.

I guess this is all I am.

I feel poison in every part of me. Poison in my bloodstream, poison rushing through all my veins, all my arteries, all my venules, all my arterioles, all my capillaries. The poison is flowing through me as if it is blood. It is plunging inside me and entering all the space around my cells. All my interstitial fluid is full of dark, corrupted, thick poison. It is entering my cells, and my cytosol is saturated with it. My lymphatic tissue is flowing with poison and my lymph nodes cannot clean it out because there is just so much, just so much, just so much. My cerebral fluid is filled with poison and the poison is surging through my brain. It's surging everywhere.

And the thick, viscous, vicious black fluid is pouring through all the many, many tiny holes and punctures and gaps and tears that are all over my body. That's what it feels like at least. It feels like the thorns of who I am have pierced through all over my body, leaving me torn and ripped and punctured and bleeding. And the poison is seeping through all the holes, is seeping out into the world. It's corroding my skin, it's staining my bedsheets and blankets and pillows, it's leaving inerasable marks that only I can ever see.

If my family knew who I truly was, if they knew what I truly was, then they would be disgusted, I'm sure. They would be disgusted, and shocked, and betrayed, they'd be so betrayed. They spent so much money on me. So much money and time and effort. So much care and consideration. All for me to turn out like this. All for me to turn out like this disgusting, insufferable mess of a human being. I let them down. I let them down. I owe them so, so much and I let them down.

They'd throw me out if they knew how I really felt. If they knew what I truly was. If they knew that the girl they tried to make into their daughter was so ungrateful, was so miserable despite everything that she has, despite everything that's been given to her, then they would definitely throw me out. And they'd have every right in the world to. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve my family and all the care that they have given to me.

I wonder what my biological family is like. I wonder what they would think of me. They probably do not care about me at all. They probably haven't given me a second thought after giving me away. What kind of parents wouldn't make sure that they could be there for their own child? What kinds of parents wouldn't raise their own child?

Of course, it's possible that they had to give me away because they were too mentally ill or too poor or too addicted or whatnot to take care of a child. It could be that they wanted to raise me, they wanted to support me, but they just couldn't. Even if that was the case though, it would still be their own fault. It would still be their own fault for giving me away. Because as my adopted mother said, everybody who is mentally ill or poor or addicted actually, secretly chooses it. So, according to her, my parents could have raised me if they wanted to. And she's right, of course. She's always right.

I hate my parents. But I love them. I love them but I hate them but I want them and I need them, despite the fact that they've let me down so much. And I love my mother, but there is a part of me that cannot trust her. I don't know why I can't trust her. She's been nothing but kind to me during my whole entire life. But something just feels off. I know I shouldn't be feeling like this. I know that there's no reason for me to be feeling like this. But something is off. Something is so very off.

It's probably just me. What's off is probably just me. Just my unending hunger. Just my desire for more, for more, for more than this perfectly happy, healthy, middle class life that I am living. I'm not a good person. I don't abide by the rules and the teachings that my mother is teaching me. I want to. Dear Universe I really, really want to. But I just can't. But I'm just not capable, no matter how hard I try.

Or maybe I am capable, and I'm just not trying hard enough. Perhaps this is all my fault. It probably is. I don't know whether it's worse to not want to be a good person hard enough or whether it's worse to not be capable of being a good person at all. But I know that I must surely be the worse one, whichever one is worst.

I am still crying. I haven't stopped crying. I have no idea how long I've been lying here. I'm supposed to be asleep. I was supposed to have gone to sleep long ago. I've probably been awake here for an hour. I never get enough sleep at night. Not that anybody knows this. But for some strange reason, I am never tired during the days. I must not need that much sleep I guess. But still, night is for sleeping. All the proper people sleep at night. I should be sleeping at night as well.

The house is so quiet. It's eerie. And I'm still crying.

———

"So how was school today?" our mother asks us, from behind the wheel of the eight seat SUV. It's a huge car. Plenty of space for all of us. There's screens on the back of each seat so that the kids in the back can watch movies and play games. But we're not going to do that in the fifteen minute drive to get home from school. The sun is setting behind us. My siblings and I are in the second row. It's idyllic. But I'm still drowning in my hidden misery.

"It was great," Riviera pipes up. She is playing with the end of her strawberry blond braid. Both the sisters have red hair, but my mother is blonde. They must have gotten their genes from the sperm donor. They were both conceived medically, but my mother didn't want to be pregnant again but she wanted a third child. I have raven black hair.

"I got invited to go to a party," Annabella speaks. "It's this Saturday, at Claira's house. Can I go?"

"Of course, my child. What are the rest of you guy's plans for the weekend?"

"I'm going to a movie with my friends," Riviera chimes. "It's the new Shadow Lady movie."

"Oh that should be fun. What are you doing, Zia?"

"I'm just staying home and studying. I'm behind on some homework."

"It's a good idea to study," my mother agrees. "It's how you can develop your mind, so that you can contribute more to society."

"We know, momma, we know." Annabella's voice has a hint of playful frustration in it.

"You girls are all very smart," our mother tells us. "You all have much to give to the world."

"Aww, thanks," I tell her, trying to put as much sincerity into my voice as I can.

"What are you guys learning about?"

"We're learning about batteries," Annabella explains, "and the way that electrons flow through batteries. It's really quite interesting. The metals that lose their electrons become ions and the ions that gain electrons become metals."

"We're learning about how to divide polynomials," Riviera starts. "It's actually pretty easy, but most people in my class find it hard. I don't know why."

"Well, I'm sure it's easy for you. I'm sure it's easy for both of you, is it not?"

"Yeah," Anabella replies, "it was okay last semester when I learned it."

"There is much knowledge and wisdom to be learned in school."

"Yes there is, mother." My voice is smooth and warm. The opposite of how I feel inside.

"Always pay close attention in school," she replies back. "School will teach you many many great wisdoms."

"Of course, mom," Riviera responds. "You see how well I'm doing."

"I do."

"School will help us make that cold hard cash," Anabella chirps.

"Absolutely," my mother agrees, "and that's definitely very important. What's also important though is the fact that school will increase your wisdom and knowledge. It will teach you how the world works. It will teach you why things are the way that they are. It will teach you how things work, how nature works, how the universe works, how people work. It will teach you how to go about your lives in a good and respectable way."

"You're right, mother," I tell her. "School has so many important messages. So many deep and hard-hitting messages."

"Yes, and you girls need to make sure to pay attention so that you can understand these messages and become truly enlightened."

I think about everything that I've learned in school. Math, science, history, grammar, how to analyze literary motifs, statistics. Atoms and neutrons and quarks and positrons. The body and all its failings. They were all interesting, doubtlessly. I have always found school interesting. But still. Still. I always felt like there might be something, something more. I always felt like there had to be something more than all these particles and molecules and metaphors. These had to be something deeper than that.

But I keep these thoughts to myself. I am probably only holding on to fantasy. I am definitely wrong. Of course there isn't anything miraculous and magical about the world. Of course all that we see is all that there is in this life, the only life. I just am stil immature. I'm still a child. I want something indescribable and inexpressible and altogether completely unreasonable. This is how a child thinks. This is what a child wants. I'm fifteen.

I need to grow up.

"What is the most interesting thing you guys have learned in school?" Annabella asks.

"Oh, probably that everything is made up of other, smaller things. Nothing is absolute except for space and time."

"Wow, that's very deep," I comment. "It's really almost mystical."

"The real world is more than mystical," Anabella states. "It's better than any magic."

"So it is," I agree. "So it is."

But is it really? I wonder. Is things being made of smaller things being made of smaller things being made of smaller things, until you get down to the waves, the ripples in space time itself, is that really better than magic? It has to be, after all, it's so cool. But despite being cool, there is this hollowness to it. There just, there has to be something more. Despite how cool this is, it's not enough. Except, it is enough. It has to be enough. It's all that there is.

This is making me feel hollow. This entire conversation is making me feel hollow. Yet I swallow down the hollowness. I don't know why it's here. It has no place. It doesn't deserve to be here. This is a perfectly normal conversation between a perfectly normal family. I swallow down the hollowness, and I swallow down my tears, and I try my best to not choke on either of these things. I always try my best, and I always fail. I wish so desperately that I could cry.

I tilt my head slightly to the side, I lean on the cool glass of the car window. The conversation flows on around me, and I weave my way through it as best as I can. I genuinely do love talking to people, including my family. It makes all the hurt hurt just a little bit less. And it makes my life just a little less storm-drenched, a little less shadow-covered. But this topic that we're talking about, dear Universe I hate it.

———

It's Sunday. We are working, all four of us. Cleaning the house. It's nice, how we all share our work and we all share our responsibility. I couldn't've asked for a better family if I tried. Though part of me still wants to try. I am dusting the many shelves and tables and cabinets that we have. It's really rather tedious work. But thankfully Annabella is helping me. We are working in tandem. It's nice, it really is.

But still I'm drowning. Still the poison is seeping through all parts of me.

But there is music playing in the background, from Annabella's phone which is on the ground. It is nice music. From her favourite playlist. It's nice music, but it is a bit too cheery for my taste. Too cheery, too smooth, too warm. I like music that is sad. I like music that is cold and rough and cut open jagged. Music that is desperate. Though truly no music can even come remotely close to brushing against the true depths of how I feel. All music pools on the very surface edges of me. So I don't really like music at all.

We carefully move all the decorations to one side of the carved wooden shelf that we are cleaning right now. This takes a bit of time, since there are so many decorations, both big an small. Colourful and flowing and made of so very many different types of material. It's beautiful, but I cannot take in the beauty of it. I cannot take in the beauty of any of it. I am too sad.

It's a pity really, my mother spent so much money on this house and I can't even appreciate most of it. She always spends so much on this family, she always gives so much to this family. But far too often I am far more ungrateful than I should be. I really am really rotten inside.

We work at an unhurried, almost leisurely pace, Annabella and I. Actually, all of us do. Because we're at home, we're not at work. No-one's forcing us to do this, no-one's paying us, we don't have to rush ourselves. And anyways, there are so very many delicate little pieces everywhere. It would be a bad idea to get careless. I mean, mother will probably understand if we break something, but still, I don't want to cause any problems for her.

We finish moving everything on this side of the shelf and we pass our dusters over the surface. Now we just have to do the same thing for the other side of the shelf and then we have to rearrange all the decorations. We arrange all the decorations differently each time we put them back. That's a clever idea Riviera came up with, and it always changes up the way that the house looks, it always gives a new feeling to the house. Since each shelf is rearranged every once in a while, there is always something different to look at. If only I could appreciate it.

"You're doing a great job," Annabella tells me, cheeriness in her voice.

"Thanks, Annabella, you are too."

"It's nice, working together, isn't it?"

"It is," I say, and it both is and isn't a lie. I appreciate her company, her companionship, her help. But my life is not nice. I don't know why.

"These shelves were so dusty when we started out. They look so much better now."

"They do," I agree. "This house is so big, it's inevitable that things will get dusty."

"Yes it is inevitable." There is a hint of tiredness in her voice. "There's always more work to do."

"Yes."

"Should we move on to the next piece?" she asks. We are done with this intricate, multilayered shelf. But there is a lot more furniture to get to. Not that we have to finish everything today. It would be very difficult to finish everything in one day. I don't want to push Annabella too hard.

"Sure. Where to now?"

"Let's go to the television stand on this floor."

"Sounds good."

There are a bunch of televisions in our house. One in the basement. One in the sunroofed attic upstairs. My mother and my two sisters both have televisions in their rooms. And there is the main television, which is as wide as I am tall, on the first floor. It's for all of us. But my mother asked me if I wanted a television as well. I told her that I didn't want one, since I didn't want to use up any more of her money than I had to. I wonder if I would be happier with a television. I don't really need one, but still, I'm the only one that doesn't have one.

We move on to the large shelf of the television, which is raised eye level to the couches. There's a lot of stuff to move around here as well. Moving stuff around always takes the most time. My sisters say they like it though, because they can focus on all the very pretty things we have around. But I don't feel the same way. I can't focus on all this stuff, ever. Like I said before, there's something strange about me, something deeply wrong with me.

"How are you girls doing?" our mother asks us.

"Doing fine, how about you?" Annabella replies.

"I'm doing alright myself. You guys have gotten a lot done. Good job."

"Thank you, mother," I answer.

"So I'm thinking this is enough work for today," our mother begins, "what do you girls think? Do you want to keep working?"

"I think we've had enough for today," Annabella answers. "What do you think, Zia?"

"Yeah, if you guys are thinking of wrapping up then I'm fine with that." My voice is a lot smoother than I how feel.

"I think we should go and eat dinner," our mother suggests. "I can order food for us. What restaurant to you guys want to eat from?"

———

Mother's eyes are darkened with worry, with a light sort of terror. It makes my heart freeze with hard ice in my chest. I don't know why she has gathered us all around her, sitting around the dining table despite there being no plates in front of us. Whatever it is, it cannot be good. We all look at her and at each other worriedly and solemnly.

"What is it, Mom?" Annabella asks.

"My girls," she begins, "I have terrible news to impart to you. The bank that has all of our savings, that has my paycheque for these next six months, this bank has been robbed. Now we have nothing. No money, no paycheque, nothing."

"But can't the bank give us back our money?" Riviera asks, concern and disbelief flowing through her voice.

"I'm afraid not," our mother replies. "The bank has been robbed to the ground. They have nothing left to give to anybody."

"What about the government?" Annabella suggests, "can't they help?"

"The government doesn't help normal people like us and you know this," our mother replies, fear laced into her words.

"But it's not fair," Riviera complains. "It's not our fault that our money got robbed. It's not our fault at all. Shouldn't the government be able to do something to help?"

"The government is corrupt and we all know it." Our mother's voice is laced with resignation. "They do not have any morals. They do not care about what is fair and what isn't. All they care about is their own money and their own power."

"That's really unfair, mother," I speak. "What will we do now?"

"That's what I've been meaning to talk to you girls about," our mother starts. "These next six months will be extra tight. We won't be able to do all the things that we normally do."

"Like what?" Riviera asks. "What won't we be able to do?"

"We won't be able to spend anything," our mother replies. "We won't be able to buy new clothes, we won't be able to buy new shoes, no new technology, no new toys, no new video games, no new decorations or blankets or anything."

"Will we still be able to watch movies and shows on our streaming services?" Annabella asks.

"No," our mother responds. "In fact, we have to stop our subscriptions to all of our streaming services. And we will have to stop our connection to the internet itself."

"No internet?" Riviera echoes, an incredulous tone in her voice.

"Yes, I'm afraid," our mother answers. "No internet, nothing fun."

"I'm so sorry that we're all going through all of this," I speak to my family. "I'm sure that we'll make it through this. I'm sure we'll make it to the other side of this." I keep my voice calm, smooth, solemn, calming. I look around at the eyes of my entire family. They are all shocked, all full of dread, all full of a horrible anticipation and a dreadful resignation. I feel as though I'm the only one who's even a little bit calm. I feel as though I'm the only one with her head on even a little bit straight. And that means that I have to be the one that calms everyone down and makes everyone feel a bit better.

"Will we really make it to the other side of this?" Riviera asks worriedly.

"We will, I promise," I assure her. I assure them all. They have to have hope. Through this shocking event, I have to make sure that my family has hope.

"We will be able to get through to the other side of this," our mother echoes. "We're a strong family. We're a close family. We're a tight-knit family. We'll get through this."

"So what else will we have to go without?" Annabella questions.

"We won't be able to go out either," our mother answers. "We won't be able to go out to movies, or dances. We won't be able to go to night clubs, or restaurants, or theatres or performances. We won't be able to go to the museum or the art gallery or to any concerts. We'll just have to stay home. And we'll have to try to conserve money and gas."

"What on earth?" Annabella's voice is incredulous. "How will we survive that? How will we be able to live through all of that? This is an atrocity!"

"I agree!" Riviera exclaims. "You can't expect us to live like this. It's simply far, far too much! How will we live without anything fun? How will we live when life is so boring?!"

"I know it will be hard, girls. I know. But we have to deal with this. We have to play the cards that we've been dealt."

"Exactly," I echo. "We still have our big, pretty house. And we still have all the nice things and the pretty furniture in our house. We can also take walks. We can see all the other pretty houses in the community of the forest and we can see their pretty gardens. We can walk through the forest. That's free. And I know how much you all like to do that." I try to keep a positive attitude. I try to help my sisters keep as positive of an attitude as they can. The Universe knows that we will need it.

"Exactly," our mother agrees. "And besides, this is only six months. We will switch to a different bank. And when my paycheque comes again in six months, we will have as much money as we used to have before. We'll be able to pay for everything we used to be able to pay for before."

"Ugh, fine," Annabella conceded.

"What about all our debts?" Riviera asks. "How will we pay those? Will we be able to hold off on paying those? What will we do?"

"We will be able to hold off on paying most of our debts, until my next payday comes," our mother explains. At this, my sisters smile. I force a smile myself. "I talked to the bank. They said that they would pause payments on most debts."

"That's great!" Annabella exclaims. "That was really nice of them."

"So it was," I agree.

"Don't get your hopes up too high," our mother cautions us, "there are still some debts we have to pay off. Like our mortgage for example. The bank says that we have to pay that, even though we lost all our money."

"What?!" Annabella exclaims, exasperation and anger in her voice. "How will we do that?! Our house is so big. Our mortgage is so big."

"What will happen if we don't pay?" Riviera asks.

"Then our house will be gone. And if our house is gone, we'll be out on the streets, and my job will be gone too. Let's hope that doesn't happen."

"It won't happen," I assure my family. "We'll find a way to stop that from happening."

"We will," our mother presses. "And we'll find a way to pay for our heating and water bills too. Those are also bills we're not allowed to put on hold."

"This is horrible!" Riviera exclaims. "This is so, so, so horrible!"

"It happens," our mother explains. "These things, they just happen sometimes."

"So what else will we have to go without?" Annabella asks. "Don't tell us that we won't be able to eat either."

"That's the thing," our mother begins, "we might not be able to eat. The Universe knows that I don't have the money for food right now. But we'll find a way. I promise."

"What?!" Annabella and Riviera both exclaim together in a messy, off-time unison. They both begin talking at the same time. No, talking is the wrong word. They both begin almost screaming at the same time, speaking so fast and in such a panicked way. Even my calm exterior cracks. How on earth are we supposed to get through this? How on earth are we supposed to go six months with no food?

I try to keep my face neutral. I try to not let the fear that I'm feeling show. I have to stay calm for my family. I have to stay collected for my family. I think that I'm the only one who is holding everyone together. And I have to hold everyone together. It does not matter how much pure dread I am feeling inside me. It doesn't matter that inside me, there is a terrible, terrible foreboding. A feeling that something is going to go terribly, terribly wrong. Even more terribly wrong than what is happening right now.

"Girls, girls, calm down!" our mother yells, voice laced with love and with worry and concern. Even now, her voice is loving. Even in the midst of so much stress, she loves her children. She is such an amazing mother, despite everything that I so very irrationally feel inside.

My sisters do calm down, and we are left looking at each other with dread and hopelessness. I force myself to smile, just a little thing, a placating thing that offers perhaps a small bit of comfort.

"Girls," our mother begins, "I will make sure that our family has all the food that it can have. I will make sure that our family has all the food that it needs. I will make sure that we can continue paying our mortgage and that we can continue paying our electricity bills and our water bills and our car payments. I will make sure that we have enough to get by. Don't worry girls, I will make sure. I will continue to provide for my family."

"How will we do that?" Riviera asks.

"I will ask our friends and our family for help. They will help us in paying our mortgage. They will help us in paying our electricity bills and water bills. They will help us in paying for our food. We have many friends, many family members. They will pull through for us. They will give what they can."

"But don't they have their own bills to pay?" Riviera asks.

"They do, but they will spare what they can," our mother answers.

"Will that be enough?" Annabella asks.

"It will be what it is," our mother answers. "Whatever help we can get from them, whatever money we can get from them, we will make it stretch as much as we can make it stretch and we will do as much with the money as we can. We will get by."

"We will get by," I echo. "I have faith in mother and in her ability to help her family and her ability to make things work. She's so smart, so brilliant, so resourceful. She'll help us though this, I'm sure. She can do it. If she can't do it then no-one can."

"Thank you, Zia. I appreciate your brave and resilient outlook to this situation." Our mother smiles at me. It's a tiny thing. A fleeting thing. But something that gives me strength anyways. Something that gives me courage anyways. But still, I cannot get rid of this feeling in my heart that something truly terrible is about to happen, something far more terrible than this situation that we've found ourselves in, something intimately tied to this situation that we've found ourselves in.

"What about the debts?" Annabella asks. "If we ask for help from our friends and family, won't that mean that we have a debt to them? How will we pay that back?"

"They have a debt to us," our mother answers. "We have helped them many times in the past, and they have amassed quite a bit of debt to us. They will surely consider our ask for help as a way to pay back the debt that they have, not a way to extract debt from us."

"You are truly wise, momma!" Riviera declares with a hint of joy in her voice. "You can truly get us out of the worst situations. You have truly thought this through!"

"Thank you, my daughter," our mother responds. "Now if you will excuse me, I have many, many phone calls to make."

———

It's been three weeks since that terrible, terrible family talk when my mother told us what a situation we were in. It has been three weeks, and the food in our fridges and pantries are almost all out. Our food is almost all out, but my mother has spent so many hours calling people and calling people and getting whatever help she could from them. She has called everyone we know so far, and gotten many pledges of support. Let's just hope that it's enough.

It's Saturday now. It's Saturday, and my sisters are off at friends' houses, trying to make our food stretch by partaking in theirs. I don't really have any close friends, so I'm just sitting on the couch. It's a nice couch. It's a soft couch. It's a soft and nice couch and I kind of like sitting here, just thinking my thoughts.

As always, my thoughts run melancholy. My emotions run melancholy. Everything inside me runs melancholy, and there is very little that I can do about that, despite all my hardest efforts. But still, I don't feel as guilty for feeling sad right now, not as much as I usually do. Because the Universe knows that I have plenty good reason to be sad right now. We all do.

"Zia," my mother speaks to me, grabbing onto my forearm and leading me away to my room, "I need to talk to you."

She doesn't grab me like this very often. Her voice is urgent, is almost furtive, and her eyes are darkened. Her whole expression is darkened. Fear spikes in my heart. What is about to happen right now? It can surely be nothing good. But my mother wouldn't hurt me, would she? Of course she wouldn't hurt me. My mind is sure, but my guilty, traitorous heart is not so sure.

"What is it, mother?" I ask her, voice soft and conceding.

"I have to talk to you about our financial situation," she presses. "I'm sure you know how much trouble we're in."

"I do. Why?" This is not looking good. Is my family in more trouble than I thought? What are we going to do about this? Why is she telling only me? What can I do about this?

"Well, I talked to our friends and family. They are supporting us, but they do not have the money to support us fully."

"Oh no." My eyes go wide. "What will we do now?"

"That's what I meant to talk to you about," she starts. "We have enough money to pay off the mortgage, and that comes first. Because without the mortgage we'll be out on the street and I won't have a job."

"That's good."

"And we have enough money for food. But here's the thing, we don't have enough food for everyone."

"Oh no. What will we do?"

"I can feed your sisters. But I can't feed you more than one meal a day. You will have to eat your lunch at school and then just wait after you come home. Just wait for these few months to be over."

"Um ... excuse me?" I cannot believe what my own mother is saying.

"You will have to eat one meal a day, okay?"

"Okay." I reply. And really, it's the only thing that I can say. It's the only way I can reply. Because she's my mother. She's given me so much. How else could I possibly reply to her?

"You can do that, right? For your sisters and for me? So that we have enough to eat?" Her voice is almost pleading, but it also has a firm, pressing quality to it. And as always, I cannot deny her. I cannot deny her at all. Not even a bit.

"Of course, mother."

"I knew you would answer in this way. I knew that you would understand. You're a good girl. A righteous girl. You make the right decisions and do what is proper and decent and just."

"But mother ..." I begin.

"What is it, child?"

"If I said no, then what would you have done?"

"Then I still couldn't have given you food, I'm sorry. I have to make sure your two sisters get enough food."

I don't quite understand why she's singling me out to be the one that starves. I don't quite understand, but at the same time I do understand it. I understand it in the back of my mind, in the small, rebellious part of my heart that has been plaguing me since I was young. I almost cannot believe what's going on. But my worst fears are coming true.

"Mother," I begin, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

"What is it, my girl?"

"Why am I the one that has to go hungry?" I know I am not really supposed to ask this question. I know I am not really allowed to ask this question. I know I am only allowed to go along with what my mother wants. But I cannot help but to ask it anyways. I just ... I just have to know why.

"You know about debts and owing people, right?" There is a bit of forced, fake brightness in her voice. "You know that you must pay back the people who have helped you, right?"

"Yes, mother."

"We'll this is your way to pay me back, to pay this family back, for all that we have helped you over the years. See, we took you in and fed you and clothed you and sheltered you, and you need to pay us back for all that. You need to pay us back by making a sacrifice."

"Okay, mother."

"You're a good girl. I know that you can make sacrifices for what is good and right. And I know that you can pay back your debts."

This makes sense. What she's saying makes sense. She's not withholding food from me because she doesn't love me. She's not starving me because she doesn't love me. She does love me. She's just withholding food from me because it is the good, right, and just thing to do. She's only doing it because it's what's moral and proper to do. She's just following her morals, not her heart. And of course, she has to follow her morals, not her heart. She still loves me in her heart. She still does. But still ...

"Why do I owe you a debt and my sisters don't? You raised them as well." I know I am asking too many questions. I shouldn't be asking so many questions. I silently curse my traitorous mouth.

"I brought your sisters into the world," my mother explains. "And thus it is my job to take care of them and provide for them and raise them. It is not a debt that they're procuring, because it is simply my responsibility to take care of them, it is not something kind and generous that I am doing for them that I did not have to do.

"You on the other hand though, I didn't bring you into this world. You are not someone I have to have responsibility towards. And yet I took you in anyways. And yet I provided for you and helped you and fed you and sheltered you and raised you anyways, even though I didn't have to. And therefore everything I did for you was an act of kindness. An act of kindness that you have to repay somehow. You owe it to us. We had no obligation to give you a home, and yet we did. In fact, without me taking care of you when you were weak and helpless and defenceless, you might have died. And so you owe us your life."

"I understand," I tell my mother. But do I truly understand? I should understand. Everything that she said made perfect sense. She had to take care of my sisters. But she didn't have to take care of me. And so I absolutely do owe her, don't I? She's right. Of course she's right. She's wise and caring and kind and just, and of course she's always right.

"I'm glad you understand, my girl," my mother tells me. She smiles fondly at me, and I smile back at her. I love her smiles.

She leaves me in my room, and closes the door behind her. I hear the lock clicking shut from the outside, and my heart skips a beat in fear. I quickly calm myself down though, telling myself that my mother would of course have a good reason for locking the door. Of course she would. She has a good reason for all that she does. And the only reason that I am locked in is because I have a good reason to be.

I go to my soft bed, and I curl up. I hug my knees to my chest and lie against the pillow, on my side, looking at the forest outside the window. The trees are beautiful. They have always been beautiful. They try to soothe my soul as much as they can, and I wish they could succeed more than they are. But still, I am deeply thankful for these trees from the very centre of my core.

There is no-one here right now, so I allow myself to cry. I can allow myself to cry. And I can allow myself to miss the things that I have no right to miss.

My mother is right. She's so very right. She's very smart and wise and knowledgeable and learned. She is a pillar in the community, helping all the people around her. And she has so much knowledge from so many places. She knows very well how the world works and what each person's place is within it. She knows very well what roles we are all supposed to play and how we can all play these roles. She knows very well what roles I'm supposed to play and how I can play these roles. She knows what my place is and I must believe her, I must learn from her. I must believe her and I must learn from her so that I too know what my place in the world is and how to play the role that I am supposed to play, that I am obliged to play.

She's right. She didn't have to take me in. She didn't have to take care of me and protect me. And yet she did. She did take care of me and protect me for so long. She took care of me so well. And she will take care of me again once this emergency is over. She did not have to do any of this. She was not obliged to do any of this. And yet she did it anyways. She did it anyways out of the kindness of her heart because she is just such a kind person, and she is raising her children as well to be such kind people.

She didn't raise my sisters out of the kindness of her heart. She raised them because she was obliged to. Because she was obliged to take care of them. Because she was obliged to love them. A mother is obliged to love the babies that come out of her body. A mother cannot help but to love the babies that come out of her body. Annabella and Riviera are children that she is compelled to love, that she is obliged to love. So her loving them isn't a great act of kindness, it is simply expected.

Yet her love for me is not simply expected. It is something she chose to bestow upon me. And so I owe her. I owe it to her to help her. I owe it to her to help her family. I owe her in a way that my sisters don't. And so I am obligated to make sacrifices for this family, to go hungry for this family, so that my sisters can eat. Because they are not beholden to this family in the way that I am. They do not owe my mother in the way that I do.

So I curl in on myself tighter and I cry. For some strange, unfathonable reason, I feel so very betrayed. I cannot stop feeling this way.

———

I come home from school. It's been two months since that fateful day when my mother took me to my room and told me what I would have to do. It's been two months, and I have felt myself getting weaker and weaker and weaker. I don't know how I'll be able to hold on these many long months. I don't know how I'll be able to live through it. But I have to live through it. And so I force myself on.

I get to my room, being followed by my mother.

"How was school today?" she asks me with concern dripping through her voice. She loves me. Even now, when she's been forced to make such a horrible decision, she loves me. Yet why can I not make myself believe this?

"It was okay," I reply, exhaustion dripping through my voice. School wasn't actually okay. I was so, so hungry the whole time. As I always am.

"That's good." She closes the door, and I hear the telltale click of the lock.

I've mostly been locked in my room these past two months. It makes sense. I understand that I probably wouldn't be able to stop myself from going to the fridge if I could, so locking the door just ensures that I can't do that. It just ensures that I can't steal food.

I miss being able to interact with my family. I miss it so, so very much. I didn't know that I would miss it so much. I'm all alone now. There's no-one with me. No-one to share my time with. No-one to share my experiences with. No-one to listen to and talk to and interact with. Just me, alone with my thoughts in my own room in a house that doesn't feel like it's mine, that has never felt like it was mine.

Hunger claws in my gut like a vicious, hungry beast with sharp teeth and sharp claws. It bites and scratches at all my insides. My stomach hurts so much, my ribs hurt so much, my chest cavity hurts so much. My arms and legs hurt. My head feels light and dizzy. It all hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It hurts unbearably and I feel like screaming in pain yet I am far too weak to scream. Not that it would make much of a difference anyways. All that would happen is that I would get in trouble.

I'm helpless. I'm helpless. I'm locked in this room and I'm helpless and I can't get out. I'm trapped. I'm trapped and there's nothing I can do. All I can do is claw desperately at my mind for an escape, for a release, for a relief and a salvation that I know is not coming. The beast inside of me and me myself are both trapped, are both hungering, are both begging to be let out. But the beast in me can eat my insides. I cannot.

Though actually, I am eating myself. My body has run out of fat to digest into carbohydrates, probably. It's probably digesting my muscles and my organs and my epithelial tissue now. Burning through my cells to extract precious, precious energy. A process which has been evolved into my bloodline over millions of years.

See, it's natural, what is happening to me. My hunger is natural. It is something that my body is ready for. Something that my body has been ready for for so many years. The biological processes that guide starvation are processes that have existed for eons. They are processes that have been building and developing within us since we were just single cells, since we were just prokaryotes. So, it's okay to starve sometimes. There is nothing wrong with starving sometimes.

And anyways, because I'm starving, that means that my mother and my sisters can eat. My sisters, especially, can eat. They need to be able to eat. They need to be able to get the calories they need. I love them. I really do love them a lot. And I need to do what I can do in order to help them. If that means not eating, then so be it. I will bear it, no matter what it takes from me, no matter how much it hurts.

But part of me doesn't love my family. Part of me holds it against them, what they are doing to me. Part of me is deeply, deeply betrayed. It is rueful, jealous, bitter. I am rueful, jealous, bitter. I am full of hatred and bitterness and part of me wants to get revenge, get revenge, get revenge for what they've put me through.

But I cannot get revenge. I am simply one person with no money, no power, no property, no abilities, no resources, no support, no help. There is nothing I can do about my situation. I'm a teenaged girl locked in a room, all by myself. There is nothing I can do. Perhaps this is why my mother was able to do this to me. Because she knew I was weaker than her. She knew I couldn't fight back.

But I feel so guilty for hating my family. I feel so guilty for wanting revenge. This simply proves that I am rotten inside. It simply proves that I am unholy, ungrateful, unworthy. I know that the good and right thing for me to do would be to be strong and silently bear the burden of my situation. But for some reason I am finding myself unable to do that. I am finding myself unable to do what I know is good and right. How on earth could I be so selfish? This just proves that I don't actually deserve to eat.

I lie in my bed, which is what I have found myself doing so very often, and I cry. I think about reading a book to try to take my mind away from the hunger. I think about it, but I know it won't work. I've tried reading before. I've tried thinking other thoughts and getting my mind off of the hunger. Nothing has worked. All the time, my emotions are consumed by the all-consuming ache of hunger. Even when my mind is distracted, it doesn't matter that my mind is distracted because my heart isn't.

It's all-consuming. It consumes every part of me, taking more and more and more until there is nothing left. All I am is a constant, insatiable need, an overarching and overwhelming ache. I am burning, burning, burning. Every part of me is burning. And yet at the same time I am freezing, freezing, freezing. Every part of me is freezing. The pain is a screaming sort of pain, and I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it. But bear it I must.

And, throughout this whole time, my emotional misery has not subsided. I'm still as sad as I was before. As torn and ripped and poisoned. The poison is still seeping through me. And my mind and my heart are swept away in the poison storm. Except now, along with the emotional pain, there is also physical pain. There is physical pain that is just as strong as the emotional pain and the two types of pain are interlaced throughout each other. As two sides of the same coin.

I breathe. And the breath comes ragged and jagged. Everything inside me is ragged and jagged. Everything about me is ragged and jagged. It has been for a long, long while. As long as I can remember. But it's worse now.

Now the parts of my mind that I could suppress somewhat before are more bold and loud than they ever have been. They tell me that I am not loved, I am not loved, I am not loved. I know that I'm loved, that I must be loved. But the feeling that I am not overcomes me. The feeling that no one in the universe truly cares for me overcomes me and overwhelms me. And I try so very very hard to not listen to it. But there is nothing that I can do but for listening to it. Despite all my best efforts. But still, I tell myself that I am wrong, I am wrong, I am wrong. I tell myself that I am loved. Now if only I could believe myself.

The hunger was terrible the first day. The first day when I had no food. When I had only one meal that day. The first day I starved. It was so terrible, so painful, so unbearable. It was such violence. Violence on my body, violence on my mind, violence on my heart, violence on my soul. There was so much violence and there was so much devastation. I did not think it could possibly get worse.

But get worse it did. Every day that I went without food, the pain built up and built up and built up. It was more unbearable each day. And each day all I could do was bear it. And each day I was pushed further and further and further past the limits of what my body could tolerate. Each day I was pushed further past the limits of what I though myself capable of tolerating.

It was and still is a small kindness that I was used to unbearable pain my whole life, despite that pain being not quite as physical. It was still physical. My past emotional pain, the pain that I've been dealing with my whole life, it still had a physical aspect to it. It just wasn't as ingrainedly physical as this hunger. Though of course the hunger affects my heart and my mind as well. Sadness and hunger are both deeply physical, they are both deeply emotional, they are both deeply unbearable.

I went to school each day and nobody noticed. Nobody notices what I'm going through. I'm always quiet. I'm always subdued. So my exhaustion is not really noticed. In a way I was always exhausted anyways. A couple of teachers asked me why I had lost so much weight. I guess they noticed. I simply told them that I wasn't as hungry as I used to be. A bold faced lie. But one they believed. They didn't pursue it any further. They simply let me be. So I ate my lunch at school and I went back home and got locked in my room.

Which is where I am now, lying in my soft bed, crying.

I think about screaming, yelling, banging against the door, begging for help and food and attention. But I know that it will be pointless. I know that no help will come. It will just be a waste of energy. And I have no energy to waste. I think about what could happen if I tried to fight my mother, if I tried to run to the fridge and get food before she could lock me in my room. I know that that would be pointless as well. In my weakened state, she is much stronger than me. And I couldn't fight my mother and my sisters at the same time anyways.

There is nothing I can do about my situation. There is literally nothing that I can do.

Not that I should struggle. Not that I should fight. My mother sacrificed so much to take care of me. She gave so much to take care of me. I owe it to her to sacrifice for her back. I know this. I know this, and I tell myself this, again and again and again. But it doesn't stop the pain. Actually, it just makes the pain so much worse. It makes all the pain so much worse in all its aspects. I tell myself that I shouldn't struggle against this, but each and every day that I go hungry, the struggling and desperate part of my mind gets louder and louder, harder and harder to ignore.

I don't know what will happen when I can't ignore it any longer.

———

I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I have been here for three months. I have starved myself, I have been starved for three months. And I'm going to die. Desperation is banging its fists on my insides. Desperation is screaming its throat raw in every part inside me. Hunger gnaws at my bones, gnaws at my gut, gnaws at my flesh and at my blood. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this anymore.

My mind is screaming. Screaming at me to stop this. My mind is screaming at me to make this stop. Except I can't. I can't make this stop. I don't have that kind of power. I don't have any power. All I can do is let this happen to me, no matter how desperate, no matter how infuriated I am. And I am going to die. I just know that I'm going to die.

Death looms over me. It watches everything that I do. It is like a shadow over me. It is like my shadow, trailing behind my each and every thought, my each and every action. It is a dreadful presence, constantly pressing upon my mind, constantly pressing upon my heart. Death is my only companion these days, and I do not know whether I am grateful for this companion or not. I do not know whether I am grateful for this pressing presence or not.

Part of me wants to die. Part of me wants to just let this all go. To let this jagged, tearing, grating existence go. The Universe knows that there is nothing good about life. The Universe knows that there's nothing worthwhile in existing. I feel guilty for thinking this, because I know this train of thought is not really allowed. But still, it's true, it's true, it's true. And no amount of judgement will stop it from being so horribly, undeniably true,

But despite all this, despite how hard my life is, how hard it's always been, I just cannot bear to let my life go. There is something inside me, stronger than a thousand hurricanes, that wants to live, that wants so desperately to live. It won't let me let go of this life, no matter how much I want to, no matter how much I try. I don't know where this part of me came from. I don't know if it's new or if it's always been there. But it feels older than anything ever has felt before. It feels older than I am. It feels ancient.

The part of me that wants to live tells me that I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here, it doesn't matter how, but I need to get out of here. I have to find a way to leave this place. I have to find a way to get some food. No matter what it will cost me. No matter who I will end up having to betray. No matter what I will end up having to do.

But no, I can't think that. I can't let myself think that. I have to be loyal to my family. I have to be loyal to the people who took me in and took care of me and raised me. That means I have to listen to my mother and I have to do what she told me and I have to make the sacrifices she has called upon me to make. I owe her that much. I owe them all that much. No matter how unbearably much all of this hurts, no matter what I feel in my body and in my heart and in my mind and in my soul.

But as I am lying here, in my bed, cold despite the fact that it's summer, cold despite the fact that I'm under many blankets, I ache. I ache so much. My entire body aches, but it's more, it's so much more than just my body. My entire soul aches, my mind aches, my heart aches, every part of me aches. It's as if I have thousands of clawing nails in my chest, in my stomach, in my abdomen, in my back. It's as if I am being torn apart, being disintegrated from the inside out. It's as if there is fire in my limbs, fire in my core, fire all over me that is slowly, slowly burning me away.

I feel feint and weak and lightheaded and dizzy. I am so dizzy. So, so very dizzy. It's as if I am on the verge of unconsciousness. Though I suppose that I am. I'm not just of the verge of unconsciousness, I'm on the verge of death. I'm about to die. I'm about to die. It takes so much effort and concentration to keep myself here. It takes so much effort and concentration to keep myself holding onto my consciousness and my life. It's exhausting. So exhausting. I'm exhausted. So exhausted.

I almost want to give in. I almost want to let go of my tentative hold on life. I almost want to let death take me. And so I do. I do let go. My mind is falling, falling, falling. My entire consciousness is falling, falling, falling. This is liberation. It's freedom.

I bolt upright in bed, using a heaving bellow of energy I didn't know I had. I feel fear. I feel fear. I feel an incredible surge of fear pulsing through my body, blaring through my mind, ripping through my soul. All I can feel is this fear. I can't let myself die. I can't let myself die. I can't let myself die. I don't know why. Dying would honestly be better. But I can't let myself do that.

I want to die, I want to die, I so very much want to die. But the feeling that pushes through my body and pulls me to action is my desire to live. And my desire to live might not be stronger than my desire to die, but it's the desire that gives me energy, it's the desire that forces my actions, it's the desire that makes me act. It makes me act and no other action can push through my mind and manifest as action. I need to live.

I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here. I'll die if I don't get out of here. They're trying to kill me. They're trying to kill me. It doesn't make sense why they're trying to kill me, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. I'm not really a part of this family. I'm not really a part of these people. If they had to sacrifice anyone, they'd choose me. But it doesn't matter what the reason is. I won't let them do this.

I won't let them, I won't let them, I won't let them. They won't win, they won't win, they won't win. I can't let them win. But I wonder, will I lose?

I have to think of a plan to get out of here now. I have to get out of here now. Out of this locked room. Our of this false, sugary, heartless house. Out of this piece of land and maybe even out of this community. I have to get out, I have to get out, I have to get out. If I stay here then that will be it, I will be done. But if I get out, then that will be rebellion. That will be rebellion, that will be revolution, it will be mutually assured destruction. And I don't care. I don't care if I destroy myself. As long as I bring the plans of my not mother and my not sisters with me.

I step on my hard wooden desk. The window is as big as I am. I open the window to my room, and then step out onto the window sill, holding the edges of the frame in both hands. There is a large aspen tree brushing against the window. I reach out to grab it, and then climb it down. It feels like nothing I have ever felt before, being up in this tree. It feels like protection, like love, like comfort, like care.

The last ten feet or so I have to jump down, there are no tree branches here, only trunk. I feel fear wash over me. But I realize that if I don't jump, I will quite literally die in this tree, on my not mother's land. And so I do jump. And I hit the ground and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts so much. My arms and legs ache overwhelmingly, and I feel as if I have died.

But I haven't. I haven't died. And I won't die. Not if this desperation inside me has anything to say about it. I know that I have to get up. The thing that I have to do next is to get up and start walking. So, despite how weak and dizzy I am, despite how smothered and aching I am, I have to get up and I have to use the last remaining bits of my energy to start walking.

The last remaining bits of my energy. The last remaining bits of my energy. I know right now that my energy is slipping through my fingers. I know right now that I have barely any energy left. I don't know where my ability to move is even coming from at this point, but the point still stands that I have this ability. I have this ability still and I have to use it. I have to use it in order to get myself out of here.

So I push myself up. And I pray. I don't know who I pray to. All the gods of my past have come from the mouth of my not mother. All the gods of my past have been the gods that she believed in. And I cannot believe in those same gods. Not after everything she has done to me. Not after everything she has done to me year after year after year after year, for all of my life. But I know. I know there are better gods out there. I know there are deeper gods out there. Gods which she doesn't know about and which she will never understand. I don't know who they are, but I pray to them. I pray to them to give me strength and help me.

I start walk through the thick woods outside my bedroom window. The thick woods that are cover, for now. The woods that are help for now. The woods are strength. They have always been strength, and right now the strength they give me is pressing into me, is filling me with courage, is filling me with hope. The trees cover me, the shrubs and bushes cover me, the herbs and grasses cover me. The mosses and lichens cover me. And they all conceal my form, and give me their power, as I walk towards the thin, twisting road that connects the house to the main road.

I continue walking towards the end of the road connecting my mother's property to the main road. I do not get on this road, because I do not want to be seen. Instead, I follow the road, hiding in the tree cover beside it, in the thick tapestry of tall forest that will cover me. I thank the trees for their help, and I hear them thank me back. For what purpose I do not know why. They cover me. They protect me. They hide me from prying eyes. They are alive. They are alive. They are so very alive and they give me life. And for that I am awestruck.

I keep walking. It is beyond arduous, the simple act of walking. It is nearly impossible. But I push myself on. I push myself on and I push myself on and I push myself on. Through my exhaustion. Through my aching. Through everything inside me that is screaming at me to lay down and die. The part of me that is screaming at me to go on and live is more powerful. And so, even though each step requires tremendous effort, even though each step is an ache, each step is a feat of incredible strength, and each step requires immeasurable force, I go on.

I finally reach the place where the main road connects to the property. I am away from the little town that exists in the trees. I am on the highway now. I will miss the forest dearly but I won't miss the people who live in it. It felt like it took forever getting here. But here I am, and the next part of my journey is complete. I slip through the gate and look out at the road.

I have two choices in front of me now. I could go southwest to the city. Or I could go northeast to the highway. I think for a moment.

If I go to the city, it will be easier for me to find something to eat, some source of food, some helpful person, anything at all. It will be easier for me to beg or even dumpster dive for food. But, they'll all be expecting me to go to the city. When my mother inevitably calls the police, they will all think that I went to the city, for the aforementioned reasons. So they will search the city, not the highway. And if I take the highway, there's a lower chance of me being found. But still, there are a lot more places to hide in the city. There are many more streets, and there are many more alleys and nooks and crannies. In the highway, there is only one stretch of road.

I make a decision. I'll go to the city. Yes, maybe I'll be found. But maybe I'll find a way to live. My chances are much higher there. And there aren't really any good options. I just have to do what is the best option.

This is so unfair. It's so unfair that I have to be doing this. It's so unfair that I have to leave my whole life behind. I have to leave my home behind. And yet, yet my whole life has never truly been mine. And my home had never truly been mine either. It has only been the place I was forced to stay in, back when I didn't know any better and couldn't question what I'd been taught. I have never had a home. I have never had a life. I had only had survival and now I might not even have that. It's unfair. It's unfair. It's so very unfair.

I start crying. I know I'm wasting energy. I know I'm wasting water. But I can't help myself. It's all so very unfair, and the emotions inside me are swirling and whirling and completely maddening. I have to get these emotions out somehow. I have to communicate what I'm feeling somehow, even if I'm just communicating with the rows and rows of trees that line the road as it stretches towards the city.

I never had a way to communicate what I was feeling inside. I never had a way to communicate that, and I always had to keep it to myself. I always had to keep everything to myself. And that's so unfair. That is so deeply unfair. And I have to, I just have to let it out now. I have to tell the trees. I have to tell the grass, I have to tell the wind, I have to tell the sun, I have to tell the earth, I have to tell the sky.

The sun shines bright up above me and there are no clouds to be seen. And yet I'm so cold. I'm so cold. I'm so very deeply cold.

Yet despite that, the sky is blue above me. It is bright. It is brilliant. It is alive. And it gives me some of its energy, it gives me some of its vitality, it gives me some of its spirit, it gives me some of its life. The earth is firm and strong and full of life beneath me. It is life. It is death. It is life and death together as one. And it holds me. It supports me. It gives me strength. The sun is a fire and it fuels the fire inside me. It keeps the fire that is in me alive, so that I can stay alive. Each and every breath that I take connects me with the world, it connects me with the spirit of life that is in all of nature. And it is glorious, glorious, so much more glorious than anything I have ever experienced before.

I cry from the happiness just as much as I cry from the pain. I cry from the happiness that comes with the fact that this world loves me, this world loves me, this world loves me. The earth and the air and the fire and the water and the sun and the moon all love me, just as much, just as strongly, just as deeply as they love anyone else. And I realize this now. And, on the brink of death, I feel more alive than I have ever been.

And yet that doesn't change the fact that I have no shelter. I have no shelter. I have no food. I don't even have a jacket. I don't know how I'll get food, or shelter or warm clothes or anything else. I don't know how I'll get my needs met. I don't know how I'll crawl back from the brink of death. And all of that is unfair, it's unfair, it's so unfair. And that is part of what makes me cry. Because I have nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing to give anyone in exchange for food, for resources, for life.

But still, I find myself able to think about the injustices that plague me. I find myself able to call out the fact that I have nothing, even if it's in the silence of my mind. I find myself able to tell myself that I deserve equality, I deserve help, I deserve everything I need, I deserve life. I wonder why I'm able to tell myself this. Perhaps because I have come to the realization that I need to protect myself and provide for myself if I am to stay alive. Perhaps because I am desperate to stay alive, and I know that the only way I can do that is if I realize that I deserve life.

And yet I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. But, crying, I push myself to continue on through the pain and through the ardour and through the exhaustion.

In front of me a large truck is lumbering by. But, strangely enough, instead of going on down the road, it pulls over to the shoulder of the road, the strip of pavement that no vehicles can drive on. The truck pulls over a few yards in front of me. I wonder why, I know it's none of my business, but I can't help but to be curious.

A man gets out from the truck, and climbs down. His hair is dark like mine. His eyes are dark too. He looks straight at me, and starts coming towards me. Am I about to get kidnapped? Maybe. Fear pierces through my chest. What if he comes to capture me? I can't fight him off. I can't do anything. I'll just have to let him take me to wherever he takes me to. Dear universe, why does my life have to keep getting worse and worse?

The man stops a few paces away from me. He drops to his knees in front of me, and that makes him seem much less intimidating. The fear in my heart gets replaced by confusion.

"Are you crying?" he asks me with a soft and kind voice.

I nod my head.

"Okay. Do you want to come with me? I can drive you to the city, if that's where you're going. It's really not safe to be walking by the side of the highway like this."

I think about his offer. It will save me a lot of energy, if he drives me to the city. And I know that energy is very precious to me right now. He doesn't seem to be a dangerous man. He has a kind face and kind eyes. There is a deep sadness behind his eyes. There is a deep hope as well. I think I'm safe with him. And a free ride is probably the nicest offer I'm going to get in my life.

"Okay," I speak.

He holds my hand as we go to the truck. It's a rather large truck. He helps me to get on, into the passenger side, before getting on himself into the driver side. It's not much warmer in the truck than it is out in the road, but I get to sit down and lean against the seat and relax. And, I feel like I'll never be able to get up again, I am so deeply tired.

"My name is Shandro," the man tells me, as we drive in the direction of the city. "What's your name?"

"Zia," I tell him. "Or at least, that's what everybody calls me."

"It's great to meet you, Zia."

"It's great to meet you too."

"If you don't mind me asking, are you okay? You were walking by the side of the road, and you look so very thin."

"I ..." I wonder if I should answer honestly. I wonder if he'll turn me in if he knows. "I haven't been eating nearly enough for almost three months," I finally decide to say, truthfully.

"Almost three months? That's absolutely horrible, child. You're going to die." He reaches down and pulls out a small reusable grocery bag. "There's food in here. Tomato soup and a few sandwiches and chocolate milk. Eat it all. Please. I can't have you die."

"Isn't it your food, though?" I ask him. I will not take advantage of Shandro's generosity.

"Don't you need it?"

"I can go a few meals without eating," he replies to me, "you are going to die. You need to eat right now. Please, please eat."

"Thank you so much!" I exclaim, beyond myself in gratitude. I unscrew the lid for the flask of tomato soup and start eating it by the spoonful. I make sure to pace myself so that I don't go too fast, so that I can keep all of this precious food inside my body.

"If you don't mind me asking," he begins, "where are you going?"

"I'm running away from my home." I decide to tell him the truth. "My family, well, they're not really my family, they were starving me."

"Oh my gods, that's deeply horrible," Shandro exclaims. "I'm glad you escaped."

"You won't turn me in, will you?"

"Of course not. Do you have anywhere to go, though?"

"No." I deeply wish I could give him a different answer. But I can't.

"You could come live with me, if you wanted," he offers. "I'm on the road a lot, since I'm a truck driver. But my wife, she's a librarian, she can take care of you. We would treat you well, I promise."

"Really?" I cannot believe what I'm hearing. "But there's no way for me to make it up to you. I have nothing to pay you back with."

"It's okay," he responds. "We don't want anything in return. We don't want anything. We just want to make sure that you're okay, and that you have a home and food and people to take care of you."

"Thank you so much!"

"Think nothing of it. It's the least we could do. Anyways, we're in the city now. I can stop to get you some food. We have a few days of journey ahead of us and you need to eat and rebuild your body."

"Are you going to get some food for yourself, too?"

"I don't have the money to, right now. I didn't think to bring that much money. But I'll be fine. You're going to die if you don't eat. It's much more important that you eat."

"Are you sure?" I cannot believe what he is saying. Why would he put me, a stranger who he just met, above his own well-being? Why would he put my needs over his? Especially after he knows that there's nothing I could give him?

"Yes." His voice is pressing and absolutely certain, and I cannot say no to that.

I finish the tomato soup and bite into the sandwich. I am tired, so very tired. But it feels as if, for the first time that I can even remember, I am able to actually and truly rest.

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

When I was young, my mom used to go on trips. When she went on trips, she always brought me back a souvenir, and usually it was one based on my favorite animals - insects. I distinctly remember a golden dragonfly pin she brought me back from some event on the West Coast, and I remember wondering if I would ever see or go into the Pacific Ocean some day. I still wonder if I ever will, honestly. She brought me back pamphlets from the museum of medical oddities on one of the last vacations she took without me. We've mostly traveled as a family since I graduated high school, with the majority of traveling being getting me to and from university, but we did also spend a week at Yellowstone National Park. My souvenir there was just a camera roll full of buffalo. And also a new app for my phone that could identify birds called Merlin. And we saw a huge moose right on the trail we had planned in walking, derailing that plan.

Ben groaned at the thought of being alone with Morgan, who never failed to cause arguments between him and Darlene. She was constantly horning in on private moments or finding reasons to place a hand on Darlene’s shoulder or tuck her hair behind her ear. These were boundaries no friendship should ever cross.

In some odd way, the house seemed to creak in agreement.

Ben found Morgan tolerable at times—when she sat and listened to him vent about work issues while Darlene was wrapped up in family drama, or when she snuck whiskey to his home office, knowing Darlene hated his drinking. Little things that made her seem less insufferable.

But Ben couldn’t ignore the intimacy issues between him and Darlene that had begun when Morgan moved in. Darlene had been pulling away from him when he tried to hold her, but last night in the bedroom, her recoiling under his touch and the simultaneous crash of their wall photo to the floor, became his breaking point.

Darlene surrendered to a “Morgan is Morgan” attitude, but Ben refused, especially after last night.

So, when Morgan came home, he decided to take last night as a sign to act and give her an ultimatum.

“Hey Ben,” Morgan beamed, holding up a bottle of his favorite whiskey.

The lights began to flicker the moment Morgan stepped inside the apartment.

Ben poured two glasses of whiskey and handed one to Morgan, sitting beside her on the couch. Tension filled the room like another body.

“I’ll just get right to it."

Ben's knuckles turned white against his glass, and he downed the whiskey in one gulp.

He continued, “Darlene may defend you, but I refuse. You’re crossing lines, making Darlene uncomfortable, and causing problems between us. Step back or move out—your choice.”

The lights stopped flickering after Ben’s last words. Just as Morgan opened her mouth to speak, the walls closed in, and the apartment became an inferno.

Dr. Becker sits across from Wallace, one leg crossed over the other, a legal pad balanced on his knee. He’s got that therapist look—concerned but not too concerned, nodding in a way that says I hear you without making it about himself. Wallace hates that look, but he’s here, so he talks.

“She used to lock the fridge,” Wallace says. His voice is flat. A practiced kind of flat, like a table that’s been sanded down too much. “Put a bike chain around it. I could hear it clinking when she opened it. Wouldn’t even look at me, just pulled out whatever she wanted and closed it again.”

Dr. Becker nods. “How old were you?”

Wallace shrugs. “Seven? Eight? Old enough to know I wasn’t supposed to ask for food. Not if I didn’t wanna hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“The usual.” He shifts in his seat, runs a hand through his hair, yanks a little at the ends. “How I was a burden. How my father ran off because of me. How she shoulda left me at the hospital when I was born.” He doesn’t look at Becker. He focuses on a little rip in the couch cushion beside him, the stuffing peeking out like it’s eavesdropping.

Becker doesn’t rush him. That’s the worst part. He just lets it sit there, raw and open, waiting for Wallace to get sick of the silence.

Finally, Wallace exhales. “The worst part wasn’t the words. It was how normal it felt after a while. Like, I wasn’t even mad. I just believed her. A hundred percent.”

Becker scribbles something down. Wallace wonders if it’s self-worth issues or possible PTSD. Not that it matters. He already knows he’s fucked up. “And now?” Becker asks. “Do you still believe her?”

Wallace laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I don’t think I do, but I still feel it. Like it’s carved in me.”

Becker nods again. The same slow, careful nod. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“It does. That’s how emotional abuse works. It wires your brain to accept a certain reality, and even when you logically know better, that wiring stays.”

Wallace rubs his thumb against the couch. “So what, I’m just stuck like this?”

“No.” Becker leans forward a little. “It takes work, but you can rewire it. You already are. You’re here.”

Wallace doesn’t say anything to that. Just rolls his tongue along the inside of his cheek, feeling the old, familiar weight of doubt.

“I want you to try something,” Becker says. “I want you to imagine your mother sitting in front of you right now.”

Wallace goes stiff. His body knows before his mind catches up.

“Imagine she’s right here, and she just said one of those things she used to say. What do you say back?”

His fingers curl into his jeans. His chest tightens.

“I dunno.”

“Take a breath. Try.”

Wallace breathes, slow and deep, but it feels like sucking air through a straw.

He pictures her. The sharp line of her mouth. The way her eyes never softened, even when she smiled. He pictures her saying it, clear as a bell. You ruined my life.

He swallows. His throat feels thick.

But then, something moves in him. A shift. A flicker of something warmer than rage, stronger than fear.

“That’s not true,” he says, and the words feel foreign, but they land solid in his chest.

Becker smiles, just a little. “Good.”

-

The freeway hums under Wallace’s tires, the gray ribbon of asphalt stretching out ahead, pulling him forward like a current. The 405 to the 91 to the 71—familiar routes, roads he’s driven before but never with this kind of weight sitting on his chest. His fingers tighten around the steering wheel, his jaw clenches. The car’s too quiet, so he turns on the radio, but nothing sticks. He lands on some classic rock station, lets it play, lets the guitar riff fill the space where his thoughts are circling too fast.

This is stupid.

His mother isn’t going to change. He knows that. Has always known that. And yet here he is, running the words over in his head, testing them out, trying to imagine himself saying them without choking on them. That’s not true. Felt good in Becker’s office. Felt right. But that was in the safety of that little room with the shitty couch. His mom’s house is different. The air in there is thick, like stepping into a room filled with invisible hands that grab at your throat.

He takes the 91 East. No traffic. The universe is making this too easy.

His stomach twists. His grip loosens, then tightens again. He thinks about turning around, about saying fuck it, about letting it go. But he’s already too far in.

Past the Cerritos Mall, past the hills beginning to rise from the sprawl, he pictures her—sees the look she’ll give him: the tight-lipped smirk, the raised brow. The way she’ll sense the weakness before he even speaks.

The sign for Euclid Avenue blurs past.

His heart hammers.

I can’t do this.

He takes the off-ramp, pulls into a gas station and just sits. His chest rises and falls too fast, his pulse in his ears. His hands feel cold. What’s the point? She’ll laugh, tell him he’s being dramatic, turn the whole thing around until he’s the one apologizing. He knows how this goes.

His thumb taps against the steering wheel. The song on the radio changes.

He takes a breath. A real one this time.

And then another.

And then he backs out of the parking lot and gets back on the damn freeway.

The last stretch is fast. The hills roll into view, green from the last rain. Chino Hills still looks the same—strip malls, wide streets, cookie-cutter houses with big yards and the illusion of peace.

He pulls up to the house. It’s smaller than he remembers. The chain on the fridge flashes in his mind.

He gets out, shuts the car door. Stands at the front step. The frosted glass of the door obscures everything, but he knows she’s behind it. The shape of her. The hesitation.

She sees him. She knows his look.

The pause stretches.

Then the door opens.

She gives him a once-over, then smirks.

“Well. If it isn’t my little martyr.”

The wall was beige. Not because anyone liked beige, but because it hid things. Beige didn’t argue. It sat quiet, pretending the block south didn’t exist—the one with boarded windows and sagging porches. The wall was the line. Cross it, and you didn’t belong.

Then the red showed up. Smears, like kids’ drawings, faces barely faces, eyes like thumbprints. And the hands. Always the hands. Reaching, clawing, like they wanted to pull the wall down brick by brick. The city hated the hands. They painted over them fast, thick coats, like that’d make it go away. It didn’t.

The guy who did it? No one knew. Showed up after midnight, a spray can and a grudge. Every time they wiped him clean, he came back louder. Words this time. “THE WALL KEEPS NOTHING OUT.” Ugly truth, right there in block letters.

They hated him for it. Feared him, really. Not him—what he showed them. He feared them, too. Feared the day they’d bury him under fresh coats and he’d fade like everything else.

But tonight, he painted. A mother and child, hands outstretched across an empty gap. Tomorrow, the city would scrub it clean. But for tonight, the wall told the truth: there’s no line. There never was.

It wasn’t a matter of wealth, he was never in it for money. Nor was it a matter of fame, people knew him well enough already. Nor was it a matter of success, he had done many great things.

This was a matter of loss. This was a matter of coverup. This was a matter of failure.

Dr. Bridge was a man of science, a man of improvement, a man who had built a life out of caring for the safety of his employees, out of his work ethic, out of his research. Dr. Bridge was a man who made the world better, and Dr. Bridge had nearly killed someone.

“All right, it’s time. Who’s up for the trial?”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” someone spoke loudly, drawing his attention back to the elegant ballroom, “Please welcome the head of the Multiverse Experiment Committee, the man of the hour, Doctor Joseph A. Bridge!”

It was a speech they wanted, and a speech he gave. A speech of success, of humility, of wonder spilled from his lips so flawlessly that no one would notice how his words faltered as his eyes met those of the recently returned Dr. Shay, the one he nearly lost to the depths of the multiverse.

“Dr. Shay, are you ready? All right, in you go, Dmitri. I’ll check the gear.”

Nevertheless, here he stood, smiling and clapping along with the other men and women on the Committee and in the audience as Dr. Bridge completed his speech.

“Marvelous, Dr. Bridge! Just marvelous!” he was approached by a large man, one that he quickly recognized as Dr. Campbell of the Microbiology Advancement Center.

“Oh, you know me,”

“Dr. Bridge! The forces were too strong!”

“Bridge did you check the rods?”

Bridge faked a smile, “Just doing my best to make an advance.”

“And what an advance it was, indeed, Doctor.”

He turned and saw the rather elegantly dressed woman who had made the comment.

“Bridge, the rods have snapped!”

“Dr. Price, a pleasure,” he regarded her politely. He would generally make a sharp remark to his old college rival, but it had been years, and Dr. Bridge was tired. He excused himself from the scene when he saw Dr. Shay approaching.

“No, no wait—Shay, Dr. Shay can you hear me? Come through, Dmitri!”

Stepping outside, Dr. Bridge took a breath and wondered what the likelihood was that he could slip away unnoticed. Likely slim to none, but there was no sense in sticking around if it meant he would need to face the man who his own carelessness had nearly killed. There was nothing here for him, he should just go home and stay there. He should just stay away from everyone. If he stays away, no one else can get hurt, so why was he still here? What was he doing? After the ceremony, he would no longer be of any value to anyone, especially his Committee, who knew of his mistakes. Failure doesn’t deserve celebration, harm does not deserve global recognition. He should just go home and stay there.

Dr. Bridge felt as if the world was spinning, and found that it would be best for everyone, himself included, if he gave his regards to a few people and went home to deal with this heavy feeling. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had hoped that the feeling might fade the further he got from Dr. Shay, the further he got from his near-fatal error. But, as with all things lately, luck was not on Bridge’s side.

“Please, please come through!”

Coming home from the ceremony, Dr. Bridge collapsed in bed and tried to sleep it all away. Sometimes sleeping it off is best in the case of illness, but it was no regular illness he was feeling. He is feelings were fueled by his failures, and there was nothing other than his own carelessness to blame. He would need to resign, find a new field, start a new career. He was smart enough, the possibilities were possibly limitless, but failures have limits. Failures have hard stops. Failures need to know their place among the lowest of the world. Attempted murderers should be locked up. Attempted murderers don’t deserve freedom. Attempted murderers should be kept far away from society, so that the ones who plan can’t hurt, and the ones who don’t can’t fail.

Silence.

Dr. Bridge awoke the next morning to find himself feeling nauseous, but otherwise better than the previous night. Not feeling like a proper breakfast, he grabbed a granola bar and flicked on the news before he needed to drag himself to his research seminar later in the morning.

Overall, the news was relatively uneventful. A robbery here, a new scam there, nothing too out of the ordinary, and nothing deemed special, even by the anchors themselves. Nothing, until the story covering the “Recent Breakthrough in Multidimensional Technology,” that is.

“Shay! Calens, reopen the rift!”

“I can’t! The debris of the rods knocked everything out of balance! I’ll need to reconfigure the—”

“There’s no time! Shay! Oh, Dmitri, I’m so sorry…”

He lost his appetite.

Dr. Bridge received many calls that early morning; products that he didn’t want, congratulations that he didn’t deserve, the kind of calls that can really remind one of everything that’s wrong with the world. One call, however, stood out from all the rest: a call from his dear friend and colleague, Dr. Maria Calens.

“Maria, what can I do for you?” he answered.

“Joseph, we need to talk. The café across from the university, after your seminar. Be there.”

And she hung up, giving him no choice but to oblige.

The seminar, as much as Bridge was dreading it, turned out to be just what he needed. Sure, it was a lecture for college students like any other, but that’s exactly what it was, for college students. In an environment where he wasn’t surrounded by the same air of perfection and precision as usual, he felt himself finally relax.

“But Dr. Bridge,” one student asked, post-lecture, “we don’t have experience under our belts, we can’t just do things perfectly like you can. So how will we actually get this kind of stuff down?”

“You think I do things perfectly?” he was taken aback by the statement. So much so, in fact, that we was talking before he could help it. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint, but I’ve made mistakes before too. In fact, I’ve made mistakes so careless and major that they could have been fatal.”

This fact, though it upset him gravely, got the students’ attention like magic.

“Really?” he heard several voices whisper in the background.

“It’s nothing to be proud of,” he assured them, and reminded himself, “but yes. Even those of us who look the most successful are imperfect people,” and for the first time in a long time, he believed it.

Oddly enough, walking into the café to meet his friend Dr. Calens, he felt better. Not perfect, but significantly better, knowing that his imperfections did not need to be flaws, but experiences that can be used to inform the futures of others. So when Maria greeted him at the doors, he was not unhappy to sit down with her.

“Listen, I know you’re upset,” she began, in lieu of usual small talk, “but you’ve led an advancement well beyond the depths of modern science. You’ve made a breakthrough, and if you don’t want that to be a huge deal, then fine. But it is to me, and it is to the Committee, and it is to the rest of the world, so I’m sorry if you’re beat up about Dmitri Shay, but he knew the risks and there’s always room for error so at the very least you’re allowed to shut up and take the praise and stop feeling so sorry for yourself! Dr. Shay will be here soon, so if I must, I will lock you two in a room together until you sort yourself out for good!”

It was a rant, but it was a good one.

“Maria,” he started.

“Joseph,” she mocked.

“I’m okay now, really. It’s been weeks since the trial, and if it still hurts, I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, and I’m sorry.” He was honest for once, and it felt nice.

“Oh,” said Maria. This is not what she had been expecting. “Well, good.”

“By the way,” Bridge said after a long moment, “I never did see the return.”

“The what?” she was clearly confused.

“There he is!” he spotted Dr. Shay in the doorway of the café, “He can tell me what it was like then. Dr. Shay how have you been? I was just asking Maria here about your return, you see, I wasn’t there for it and was wondering how they did manage to get you back.”

“How what?” Shay was clearly very confused, and seemed a bit hesitant to approach before sitting down at the booth.

“You know,” said Bridge, “From the other plane? How did they get you back?”

“Joseph,” Maria cut in, “Dr. Shay wasn’t on our trial committee…”

Now it was his turn to be confused.

“What? Of course you were. That’s why I want to know how you got back,” he was feeling a bit panicked now, “Back? You know, after I…” his voice dropped to a lower tone, “After I lost you to the plane?”

Silence.

“You lost my brother?”

And just as quickly as it had come together, it all fell apart.

There were two brothers. Twins. Born under the same moonlit night. They were identical in form but not in spirit, and though they shared a face, their ways could not have been more different.

Elias had a voice like velvet, soft and warm. “I love you,” he told the baker when he bought his bread. “You are a dear friend,” he murmured to the farmer as he passed his cart. “We are all one people,” he reminded the priest on Sundays, nodding as if kindness alone could keep the world from cracking.

People liked Elias. He made them feel good.

Corwin was different. His words were sharp, cut clean. “You’re a fool,” he told the baker when the man almost burned his loaves. “You’re wasting time,” he said to the farmer who kept a lame horse alive out of pity. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he told the priest, who only blinked in stunned silence.

People didn’t like Corwin. He made them feel bad.

But words are strange things. They can be dressed in silk or wrapped in thorns, and neither says much about the hands that hold them.

One winter, a beggar sat shivering on the steps of town hall, blue-lipped and hollow-eyed. Elias knelt beside him, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “You are loved.” Then walked away.

Corwin sighed, tossed his coat at the man, and muttered, “Get off the damn ground before you freeze.”

Another day, a child tripped in the market, scraping his knee on the cobblestones. Elias knelt, cradled his face, and whispered, “You are so very precious.” Then he left him there.

Corwin grabbed the boy’s arm, yanked him to his feet, and said, “Stop crying. Here.” He handed him an apple and walked off without waiting for thanks.

One night, a house caught fire at the edge of the village. Flames curled like hungry fingers, devouring the roof beam by beam. Elias stood in the crowd, eyes glistening with sympathy. “We are all in this together,” he murmured.

Corwin cursed, ran straight into the smoke, and pulled the old man inside to safety.

In time, the villagers whispered.

“Elias is such a kind soul,” they said. “So full of love.” People basked in the comfort of his words.

“Corwin is a bitter man,” they muttered. “So full of hate.” A cruel shadow besides his golden-tongued brother.

But then the beggar, the child, and the old man stood together in the market and watched as Elias whispered something soft and sweet into a young woman’s ear.

And the beggar said, “He speaks of love but acts with indifference.”

And the child said, “He tells me I am precious but lets me starve.”

And the old man said, “He calls us one people but never lifts a hand for another.”

Then Corwin walked past, insulted someone under his breath, and dropped a coin in the beggar’s hand without even looking at him.

And the beggar, the child, and the old man said nothing at all.

Because they finally understood.