Found in a Bookstore Tuesday

I used to think vulnerability was weakness until I lost everything at twenty three

and discovered the most dangerous thing you can do is pretend you're fine. Nobody tells you

that rock bottom has a trapdoor. I found mine on a Tuesday morning when I couldn't

get out of bed to face another shift at the bookstore where I'd been hiding from my former life.

Six months earlier I'd walked away from law school, a relationship everyone envied,

and a future my parents had framed on their wall before I'd even lived it. The old man came

in every Tuesday at ten. Always bought nothing. Always smelled like cedar and asked

about my day like it mattered. Most people looked through me. He looked at me.