Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn't have this guilt - the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it.

She really just thought people were better off staying away from her.

I grin at the fierce burn in my legs, in my chest. Using pain to relieve pain. It doesn't make much sense.

The black-clothed bodies smear together in front of me. I am empty. Everything has spilled out of me.

Like so much of what she said about herself, it was both a joke and not a joke.

It would be nice if life worked this way, stripping the dirt from our lives and sending us back out into the world clean. But some dirt is destined to lingered.