she said she was fine. she wasn’t.

she was working on her applications and one of the prompts asked her to write about a difficulty in her life and how it shaped her.

She stared at that question for a long time.

What difficulty? she thought. I'm fine.

But the longer she sat with it, the more things started coming up. Feelings she hadn't thought about in years. Memories she had tucked away so carefully she almost forgot they were there. And this slow, creeping awareness that she had been telling herself, and everyone around her, that she was fine for a very long time.

The essay prompt didn't just ask her to write. It asked her to look.