The car went in March, so there was no car payment. The apartment went in May, so there was no rent. By June she had reduced her monthly obligations to a phone bill and a storage unit off Chandler holding a bedroom set she would not see again, and she felt, genuinely, lighter than she had felt at twenty-four.

People kept asking what the plan was, and she said things could only go up from here, which everyone accepted, because it sounded like optimism. What it described was a floor she had found comfortable. There was nothing left to protect, and protecting things had been the exhausting part. She stopped setting an alarm. No one was expecting her anywhere.