I’m not going to repeat myself—there might not be time. Time is a slippery, elusive thing, the kind that coils around you when you least expect it, squeezing tight until all the air is gone. You might try to be a peace-loving, god-fearing citizen, thinking if you keep your head down, you’ll make it through.

She had barely wrapped the towel around her body when the lights flickered, dimming and buzzing as if deciding whether to stay on. The old bathroom mirror reflected her silhouette in fragmented pieces, distorted by a crack that ran from corner to corner like a jagged scar. She stared into it, and for a moment,

I am an Endo worrier, I’m told as if I waged war and emerged crowned in victory. There is nothing vicarious about my battle. My blood-stained underwear marks my failure. My very own scarlet letter, telling me I’m unworthy. Logically, I know this can’t be true, but deep down – so far down in me,