Seven a.m.
They say grief never really leaves. It stays, like the scar on your knee after falling off a bike, like the stain on your favorite white T-shirt. They say you grow around grief. But they don’t tell you that after three hundred thirteen days, grief evolves. Grief no longer knocks at midnight. Now it barges through my door at seven in the morning. It waits for me in the bathroom mirror, slips into the ten quiet minutes I spare before getting ready for work. It swallows me whole as I brush my teeth, wash my face, scrub a body that still carries your scent I cannot rub off. Grief has rusted the edges of my hair straightener, leaving me with a screeching sound that burns into my ears with the question: does it matter being pretty on days you don’t see me? Grief strikes at seven, primes my face with tears, and holds me hostage until eight. Three hundred thirteen days I’ve learned how to dodge the grief that crawls under my blanket before I sleep. But I still don’t know how to escape the...