She’s screaming and she doesn’t know why; he can’t hear her. She’s screaming and she’s dimly aware that she has fallen to her knees, she’s screaming and her throat is burning, she’s screaming and she’s watching a little red ant carry a crumb across the pavement, and then she’s screaming with the futility of it all.

When her lungs are too tired to expel any more of the acid in her chest, she resorts to whimpering softly, pressing her cheek against the road. If she does that, they’re just lying there together. Two lovers, maybe stargazing, maybe asleep.

She wants to reach for his hand, but she doesn’t. Her fingers seek out the spot above her own heart, tracing it over and over again until she has rubbed the skin raw. A wound for a wound. Hers will heal; she tries to make sense of the idea that his won’t.

She’s getting cold and the ants are creeping across her skin, or maybe they’ve all gone to sleep and it’s just her and her nerves and him, alone. There is no measurement of time except the dark sky and her own heavy breaths. She thinks it’s been hours. She tries to count seconds, but she never gets above 30.

There’s a phenomenon where bystanders explicitly hear an emergency, but no one calls 911. Everyone assumes someone else has taken care of it, and they all go back to sleep. Maybe that’s why no one has come to collect her yet. She isn’t trying to run. She’ll make their job easy for them, hold her own hands behind her back, let them take her away without a fuss. She just wants to be anywhere but here.

The flashing lights in the distance are a godsend, a reprieve. She slowly sits up with her hands in the air.

She’s been searching for a way out as long as she can remember. She no longer cares if it means being locked in.