The school called. “Your daughter hasn’t been pick…

had become unbearable.

“This is a mistake.”

“Some clerical issue.”

“Same name.”

“Some scam.”

“Something explainable.”

The problem with panic is that it doesn’t always make you imagine the worst. Sometimes it makes you cycle obsessively through lesser horrors because the real one is too strange to admit.

The school parking lot was empty except for one red continue reading …