It was late into the month of April. A month and ten days until her birthday. This time was different. Sixteen hadn’t been a particularly good year. Marked with depression and a feeling that all of those years had passed her by. She had never experienced that temporary sentiment of immortality. The only alcohol that had touched her lips was in the presence of a parent even though she knew that anything otherwise would not match her personality. She couldn’t help but wish that things had been different.

Sixteen should have been as enjoyable to her as it was to everyone else. She thought about this every day. It was almost as if her entire epitaph would be summed up by this year. The year plagued by the sting of disappointment and regret and a constant hunger for something more. As she thought it over questions appeared like ghosts of her own mind; ‘Would 17 have to be used as the year to compensate for all that I’ve missed? Would I be able to make up for it all? Should I accept my loss and move on?’ If only there was something between making up and moving on. If only there was a year that she could designate to halt the aging process for a while. 365 more days before seventeen where she could collect her unfinished everythings and, regardless of importance, complete this past year.

Nothing was sturdy or stable at this point. Solid ground was just a pleasant day dream. In reality everything was hanging by threads that grew evermore stretched day by day, ready to fall into the abyss and be forgotten.

The truth was, she didn’t want to forget anything. However bad or uncomfortable it all was, it was permanent. In this case, everything was good. The fact that nothing was wrong, that she had never gotten the chance to make mistakes was the problem. Seemingly innocent addictions were all that she has to dwell on later in life. Nothing dangerous. Nothing harmful. No chance to feel satisfied with herself. ‘You would think,’ she thought to herself, ‘that with nothing wrong, something might have been right.’