Well, that was basically useless. The only way out is through, and the only way through is to love. Love who? What does that even mean? Does it mean I have to fall in love with someone? Or get someone to love me? In one day? I’m twenty-five and I haven’t been able to get someone to fall in love with me in the two and a half decades of my life. Doing it in one day seems an exercise in futility.

I pace back and forth in front of my couch, wearing a path in the carpet, throwing my hands up periodically, and muttering to myself.

“I can control me.” Great. What about everything else? Everything that happens to me, everything other people do to me? How do I stop all that?

I cease pacing and close my eyes.

There have to be some positives to this situation and I have to find them or I’m going to drive myself into . . . something worse than what I’m already experiencing.

List. I need a list. Lists put things in order. Being able to see it all written out in black and white, something I can control.

Grabbing a pen and small notebook, I sit on the couch and start writing.

What can I be grateful for?

I’m still alive.

I’m not in any kind of physical pain, only emotional.

I never have to pay rent again. Or any other bill. My bank account balance will revert back to normal each day—at least I think it will since I can’t check it anyway. Should I write it down if it can’t be confirmed?

Might as well.

I can do whatever I want and no one will remember the next day. I could go into work naked and it wouldn’t matter. It would be like it never even happened.

I snort out a laugh. As if I could ever do something like that, even if it would be forgotten by everyone forever. I can barely handle talking in front of people fully clothed, let alone naked.

I want tacos. Food might help me think more clearly.

A couple hours later, I’m heading home with a bag of food and a crap ton of beautiful fabric I’ve been eyeing for months but was never brave enough to buy without risking homelessness.

And I found an old pay phone I had never noticed, back in the corner of the shopping center near the freeway. It was dirty and there was gum on the mouthpiece, but it worked. Tomorrow, if it’s still Monday, I’m taking a cab.

I’m halfway down my block, almost to the front gate of my apartment, when a tall figure with sleek black hair emerges from the front entrance and turns at the sidewalk, heading in the opposite direction. Even from a distance, I know the stride, the set shoulders, the shiny hair.

Eloise.

My sister.