She could feel the frosty touch of her own fingers through the fabric of her shirt. Behind her, on the rooftop bench, low voices chatted. The stench of cigarette smoke choked the air. Below her, the endless crawl of downtown traffic slid past. Cars and trucks stayed inside the orderly lines painted on the street. They lined up nose to tail, going where they were supposed to go. Following the rules, just like she wasn’t. She came up here sometimes to clear her head. But this time, it wasn’t working. The sun burned down on her, failing to warm her skin. She felt frozen inside, like the core of her being was encased in ice, held in suspended animation for the promise of a better future. She felt like she was kneeling down on a frozen lake, wiping at the surface, trying to peer down through the cloudy ice at the body trapped within. Only, the body inside the ice was her. She knew what she’d seen after the car crash. It wasn’t just her imagination, this spider looming over her entire life.
