“When I was five or six, me and Adam were playing at my grandparent’s house. It was this old house with creaky wooden floors and doors that somehow no longer fit the frame, so you had to put all your weight into them to close. They had this great back yard with a treehouse and a trampoline. Before my grandmother passed away, the whole family on my dad’s side would get together. The adults would sit outside in lawn chairs and the kids could run wild.”

“Sounds like something out of a fifties TV show.”

“Well, it wasn’t quite that idyllic. Uncle Walter showed up stoned more often than not, and my cousin Tillie was always teaching us Urban Dictionary slang. My mom almost had a stroke with some of the words I learned. Anyway, one day, the whole family was over there, I think it was one of my cousin’s birthdays. Everyone was outside and the cousins decided we would play hide and seek. I’m the baby of the family and I really wanted to prove that I was a good hider, so I’d been scoping out places for weeks and finally found the best hiding spot. In the pantry there was this extra closet where grandma kept brooms and mops. It was really small, and I knew I was the only one who could fit in it and that no one else would think to look there. So, when everyone took off to hide, I hung back so not to give away my spot and then went and shut myself in.”

Heath strokes my arm as my voice wavers. Part of the memory is so real I can almost smell the dust and Pledge mixture of that tiny closet. Other things I only remember like I watched someone else go through it, like the way I wrapped my arms around myself, squeezing tight and sobbing through the screams.

“I don’t know how long I was in there. For a while I was so careful to be quiet. I didn’t want to give myself away. I could hear Adam calling my name and I just felt so proud, you know? He’s always been a total know-it-all. Cocky and just better at everything, so I was really excited to have beaten him at something. Anyway, eventually my cousins grew bored of the game and when I was certain I’d waited long enough that they were never going to find me, I pushed the door open ready to show off my awesome hiding skills, only I couldn’t get out. The outside of the door had one of those hook latches and it’d fallen in place when I shut the door. I screamed and screamed until I lost my voice. It was so dark and so small.”

“Fuck, Ginny.”