Epigraph

Come as you were,

Not as you’ll be,

Remember to bring back

the best part of me.

Take what you find,

Leave what you lost,

Light the way burning

the bridges you crossed . . .

— Konniption, “Come As You Were”

1

Full Stop

You’re not going to believe me.

You’ll say I’ve lost my mind, or that I’ve suffered one too many concussions. Or maybe you’ll convince yourself that I’m conning you, and that you’re the butt of some elaborate practical joke. That’s okay. Believe whatever you want if it helps you sleep. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Build ourselves a comfy web of reality like busy little spiders, and cling to it so we can get through the worst of days.

We’ve had plenty of troubled days, haven’t we? All of us. The ground shifts, and the world changes, and we go tumbling. It can happen in the time it takes for a traveler to step off an international flight and sneeze. Or the time it takes for a man with a crushed windpipe to stop breathing.

I’ve seen all that, just like you . . . but I’ve known other things. The kind of world-bending events that can’t be tracked by the news or by scientists. Changes that no one else on Earth will ever know.

But like I said, you don’t have to buy into anything I say. In fact, it’s better for you if you don’t. Tell yourself it’s only a story. Stay in the middle of your web. Catch a few flies. Live the dream.

My name is Ash. With all the things that have changed, my name hasn’t. It’s a constant around which the rest of my universe revolves, and I’m grateful for that.

Less-than-interesting fact: Ash is short for Ashley—which, as my grandmother repeatedly says, was once “a very masculine name.” It was her brother’s name. Apparently he was named after some guy in Gone With the Wind, because he had the bad luck to be born in 1939, when the movie came out—and long before people were willing to admit how racist it was. He had a twin brother named Rhett, who eventually died of polio. And here’s the funny thing—the guy who played Ashley Wilkes in the movie? His real name was Leslie Howard. Dude couldn’t get a break, even fictionally.

My name only became an issue once a year on the first day of school, when clueless teachers called it out, looking for a girl. Anyone who was stupid enough to make an obnoxious comment basically got their liver handed to them by yours truly, so classmates learned to just let it go. Anyway, Ash always worked for me. And only my aforementioned grandmother calls me Ashley.