From Creative Corner: One Hundred

Every day, it was the same. She would wake up at  dawn to get ready for school. Eat her breakfast, take a trip to the shower, fix her hair, and put on a smile to hide the pain.

The alarm clock on her bedside table read a quarter before seven—just enough minutes left to get her to school. Reaching for the door, the calendar hanging on the adjacent wall caught her attention. It was the usual calendar with dates printed in black and red on a white background, but what's unusual about it were the big X marks she put on the dates that went by. Red ink circled the number 10, which happened to be the date today. She stared at it, and it stared back. She then swallowed the lump in her throat to fight back a sob.

...