And then I was 21. Like chapters skipped over on a DVD.

I told myself… “This isn’t normal.” “This isn’t normal.”

This isn’t how life is supposed to be.

I thought about running away again. About moving to Santa Fe and changing my name one more time. But I knew that everywhere would be just the same.

I had seen how it ended.

I knew where I was.

A little bit after my 22nd birthday, I paid this burnout kid who used to hit on me in the food court $50 to bury me alive.

I mean… he didn’t know he was burying me alive, but I doubt he would have cared too much even if he did.

I bought a coffin.

I dug a hole.

I got inside and I closed the lid.

I said to myself, “This is crazy.” “What you’re doing is crazy.” But another part of me knew that it wasn’t.

That it was survival. And that I didn’t have much time.

That what felt like years in this world was actually just seconds.

So I waited.

And then finally, the first spadeful of dirt hit the top of the box.

And then another.

And then another.

I sang songs to myself. I counted to 10,000 without skipping any numbers. I pissed and I shit my pants and I forced my mouth to produce whatever saliva it could muster just so I would have something to drink.

I screamed as loud as I could for help.

I apologized for the whole thing.

And I begged God for someone to come along and save me.

I tried and tried to claw my way out, but that burnout guy had packed the dirt in too tight just like I had asked him to do.

And then, after I don’t know how long,

I felt myself start to leave myself.

And it was like I was watching myself on TV from across the room.

And I was moving further and further away from the screen until the screen was so small that I couldn’t even see myself anymore.

And then I was clawing my way up out of the ground.

And then I was at the surface, gasping for air, rain pouring down on me.

Thunder and lightning.

And I was finally back there.

Back at our old sleepaway camp.

And just like I was waking up from a bad dream, that whole life… that whole reality where I was Maddy Wilson… drifted away.

Like a brief hallucination that, after a few moments, I could hardly even remember.

And all those memories that had felt so real

washed away with the rain

back at our old sleepaway camp.

And I was me.