I crossed to the suitcase and started digging through it for something to wear to the interview.
A photograph slipped out and fell to the floor.
Faded at the edges. Me and Ryan under a row of plane trees, our sophomore year of college. He was grinning that open, guileless grin. I was beaming. Back then, we both genuinely believed we had a lifetime ahead of us.
I picked up the lighter from the nightstand and held the flame to the corner of the photo.
It caught in an instant. The two young figures curled and blackened and were gone.
The photograph turned to ash in the tray. That suffocating weight, all of it, turned to ash with it.
I stood up and smiled at myself in the mirror.
'You're thirty years old, Zoe Lynn. Your real life is only just beginning.'
The sky on sentencing day was t
