My Mother Texted That I Was Locked Out, but By Morning I Had Made a Few Calls

would collapse, and the collapse would somehow be your fault. So you keep going. You stay in a cage with no visible bars, and you call it loyalty.

I was still in that cage the night my mother sent the text.

I looked at my laptop screen in the dark of my kitchen, the cursor blinking, and I moved with the deliberate calm of someone who has finally understood continue reading …