Her legs buckled awkwardly as she raced down the hall to her office. She slammed the door shut behind her and sank to the cold floorboards.

Her fingers ached as though they’d been jammed. It reminded her of her adolescent growing pains—of soaking, curled, in hot baths and the aftertaste of Advil bitter on her tongue, her mother’s long fingers pulling through her wet, curly hair, reassuring her that the boys would catch up to her height, that she wasn’t a “freak.” She felt the familiar itch of the stretch marks that lashed across her back and around her thighs—a crossed dark lattice. She remembered the eyes on her, everywhere she went—the staring, their gazes tickling up her neck. She remembered waking at slumber parties to find games of tic-tac-toe played in the crosshatch of her scars. Every dry itch of that pull of skin brought fresh humiliation. And now she felt it on her hands, her face and neck. It felt as though her flesh was a shrinking glove, curling her fingers to her palms and holding them there.

Panting, she held her hands up to the light. Her knuckles twisted as the skin pulled tighter. The grooves of her knuckles split, the fissures like small gaping mouths from which erupted bone upon bone. She shrieked at the sting of it and tried to close the split flesh by straightening her fingers, felt the pressure grow, pulsing under her nails—saw the white of bone pale like blisters at the tips of her fingers. She stretched her fingers further and the skin burst, springing back along the protruding shafts of bone, curling back like a blooming flower. Her fingernails scattered around her. Each breath, deep and ragged, felt as though it contained less air than the one before.

There’s something in those jars. Something wrong. She remembered the prick of the bone spurs, the blood in her gloves. Careless.

She struggled, shaking, to her feet. Blood dripped from her twisting fingers to the dingy floor. She reached long, tender, bone-tipped fingers into her pocket, moaning as the rough fabric scraped against the exposed nerves, and pulled her lab keycard out. This hurts, hurts, this hurts . . . but not as much as it should. Half her brain was a hum of panic while half observed, fighting the adrenaline for scraps of logic.

The hallway was empty. It was still early—no one was in their offices yet. She limped around the door and down the hall, catching herself against the wall as she stumbled, crying out when her bones clacked against the plaster. What is happening to me? The metatarsals of her feet strained against the leather of her shoes.