Michelle Lamont

Just like that, I went from a 32A to a 32Nothing. My chest became an arid wasteland, an Afghan desert littered with emotional IEDs in the form of new scars, new bumps, new tubing, a new geography I had no map for and no idea how to navigate safely.

I wouldn’t call it hopefulness, exactly; it was more like last minute, panic-induced mania, probably induced by the same biological response that causes all your capillaries to explode in a futile attempt to warm you moments before you die of hypothermia.