She puts her hand on her stomach and laughs because her insides feel like a ticking clock and that sounds so idiotic. But every second that passes, she can feel that something is lost. She doesn't know what it was and where it went but before she can figure any of that out, it's already gone. And the next one is upon her, ready to flare and live in this moment while she's too busy struggling with the last.

She remembers a time when she thought she was empty and there was nothing left to lose. She gave away pieces of her without knowing they were there and she felt no loss. Everything was was easier then.

Now she finds that Lawr was right about her all along and he should have pinned her to the wall at the height of her glory, but instead she watches the colors fade and knows that second has long past.

And this is what it means to grow up, she thinks. This is what she's been running from her entire life because it's so much easier to make believe you're an adult when you convince yourself that you can live with the consequences of the actions you take now. But she guesses that the day you realize all those seconds have passed and you can't get them back is the day you truly become an adult and you realize what you've lost. So she struggles because she thinks she's becoming an adult but oh, no, it's far too soon for that. There are way too many seconds in front of her, but she's not aware of them until they pass her by. The only thing that she has now is an acute awareness of what's gone, and an acute blindness to what's ahead.

She's never been more scared in her life.

This is the crossroads she thinks, unaware of how far from the crossroads she still is. But it's different here so this must be the end of that freedom she worked so hard to hold onto. This must be the end, because she can't see what's ahead of her. She's got her back turned to it, too busy watching those seconds pass her by.

It's Friday, and she has no one to talk to. She reached out to Taym for one single second because she was desperate, and all she got back was "why".

If she knew the answer to that, she wouldn't have messaged him in the first place.

She messages a cold DM window, "Shiloh, where are you." and hopes she gets a system error because that would be better than nothing. But his account is still active and she gets nothing back, which just serves to remind her of the truth. She scrolls down and realizes, that's the end of it. America won't see her until tomorrow and Dawson is off fighting his own battles with himself and Otto isn't an option anymore. All the doors are closing in her face, one by one, except for the one that she failed to go down because Dawson saved her from it once, once, and she's saved herself from it ever since. Her only choice is to continue to stand there in the middle of her little room and watch the seconds go by. But maybe it's better this way, she reasons with herself. At least now she can see the seconds go by. Before, when Otto was her left hand and Cami was her right, she used them both to solidly cover her eyes because everything was perfect behind her closed eyelids. And she smiled,because why wouldn't she think that? She was finally happy in the dark.

Now she can see them all as they pass, one by one. Missed opportunities all lost and immediately forgotten. At least she can see them now, right before she loses them. It's a new kind of hurt, which she needed because the old one won't make her feel alive anymore.

And that was the biggest loss of all.

That was the only second that made her turn, just that one time. The second that passed, and made her stop everything to question where it had gone. She looked down at bloody knuckles and couldn't feel anything but pain, and why. Why, she asked the torn, bleeding skin. Why was it withholding on her, now? Why was that one swift and necessary release abandoning her, too?

The colors of her wings dulled, and dulled, and now everything was grey until it passed. That was why she was so obsessed with watching all of her seconds go by, she realized. She only saw what she was missing, all the colors and emotions she couldn't comprehend, as they were passing her by.

But at least she could see them. See, but not touch. Better than nothing, she decides. It wasn't as if she wasn't used to coming in second place, anyway. If she was always just a step behind, at least she gets to see the finish line right before it breaks on someone else's body.

That had to count for something.

Didn't it?