This is the battle of my mind, and this is how I come out of it: scorched but dripping with resolve. I’ll be the gap-toothed champion of the southeast, and men will never dare lay their hands on me again. And I will hear the pretty-eyed boy scream my name as I jump off the dock, and I will find him in the shipwreck. I’ll kiss him hard before the doctor pulls me out of the water. This is what they call a flashback. Can you hear me? You’re okay. You’re here. He pulls me back into the water. He deepens the kiss. His hands at my hips. It’s too much, I say, but I swallow lake water, and his nails lunge into my ribs. I reach out, but I can’t find anything but that old doctor’s hand.

Don’t go back there. We suffer enough in the present—why suffer the past all over again?

I go back, and I drown those two confused lovers forever. Their faces peer up, toothless, from the sand. The dock has never felt higher. And the world has never felt more warm.