How long does it take to become a woman? How many moons disappear into the darkness? How many suns climb over the sheer face of the horizon only to collapse on the other side?

The journey to womanhood is not measured in suns or moons, but in decisions counted like money that can never be spent. The account is always at zero, because one choice leads to another, on and on—forever, and ever, and ever—until a girl is lost inside them, looking for her own edges.

Are you here, inside this foreverness of broken stars and cold space?

Santino, I told you to set me free, and you turned those words into your language and made it into a promise of forever.

I hated you for it, but then I met you where you were, and the words you made me say in that church turned into the truth.