Little T. gave a shrug. “I got my meds. Got to go.

She was pleased with Cherie’s contribution, which was a tree with the head of a man and the feet of a bird, possibly a chicken, and spiked eyelashes made of razor blades.

This wasn’t necessarily what love looked like, but it was close enough to cause the other girls, at separate tables with their own visitors, to turn and stare.

Our private taste in books showed a hint of our secret selves, and sometimes I was the only one who got to see those secrets.

I changed with my back to her, aware of her body moving, breathing. Aware of what bodies were capable of, which was betrayal and lies.

We understand how that can make a girl crumble.

Everything I know about bombs tells me they are built to explode. But something must set them off first. There must be a trigger before the noise goes off, before the big burst of bright, choking smoke. Otherwise a girl could stay quiet for years.

It was hoped we might have two lives – the way cats are said to have nine. This life we ruined, and another, for after.

Probably she died. Consumption. Fever. Mountain lion. I don’t know.

We have some ideas about the afterlife, about why we’re still here. The thing about a life being cut short, when it’s not by choice and not with any rhyme or reason or hinted at by diagnosis or threat, is that sometimes, some of you will want to hang on. We do. We can’t seem to find a way to leave.