(She’s at the bottom of a well: alone in the dark but also comforted by the thought that she might never have to come back. She doesn’t want to be rescued by the people calling from the rim and tossing ropes down for her to grab on to. She pretends she can’t see their faces or hear their cries. But they ignore her resistance and haul her up and out to the light that blazes like the lake at sunrise. A light that hurts unlike anything else that has happened to her before.) 

She turned in her essays from her hospital bed; only missed one deadline—always the classic overachiever, her friends teased. She was taken for scans and more tests. An MRI. She lay passive as a mummy, headphones on to protect her from the machine&rsqu...

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