But much like it hadn’t worked in the school hall, it wasn’t working now. I pulled onto the side of the road. My heart was jackhammering inside me. I had this heavy pain in the middle of my chest, as if I was lying down and someone had placed a brick on me. My breathing felt labored and I fought for air.

I was drowning. Dry drowning. Like those kids you hear of who get water in their lungs while swimming and then go to sleep later that night and drown.

Was I going to drown somehow?

I scrambled for my phone and opened Google Maps. I typed in the word hospital and it brought up the nearest one. It was only five kilometers away. A seven-minute drive. I breathed a small sigh of relief. Sometimes, when I’m like this—when I know on some level this is just a panic attack, but on another level, a more powerful one, I’m convinced I’m having a heart attack—I like to check where the nearest hospital is. It calms me a little. And when it’s this bad, I like to drive in the direction of the hospital, just in case.

I started driving again, toward the hospital. I drove for about six minutes, and as soon as the hospital came into view, I felt a lot better. Even still, I decided I would circle around it a few times, just until the rest of the panic subsided. But as I turned the corner, something caught my attention.

A small cross on the side of the road. It had been there a long time. The rain had rotted the wood, wind had blown it askew, and weeds were growing around the base of it. It looked alone, forgotten, invisible. I parked my car and looked around. It was dark. No one was here, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I felt drawn to look at it. It was as if it was calling in a voice I couldn’t quite hear but at the same time, knew I had to listen to. I walked over to the cross and bent down to read the name on it.

Rose Maponyane 1997-2015

I read her name in my head and there was something so familiar about how it sounded. Not familiar like I’d known her, but another kind of familiar that I didn’t understand at all. I quickly did the mental math and realized that Rose had been just a little bit older than me when she’d died. Right here on the corner of this road, against the streetlight that still bore the scars of it. The old, now-rusted dent in the pole told her final story.