Only If You're Lucky

by Stacy Willingham

And it had scared me for a while, realizing that any second could be the end of it: something as simple as a trip into traffic, a cramp while you’re swimming. That a life as bright as hers could be extinguished without even the courtesy of a heads-up. But at the same time, the abruptness of it all made me realize that she was right. You’re only young once, and only if you’re lucky.

That I didn’t feel their nervous energy, hear their shallow breaths. Pick up the panicked beating of their pulse beneath the floorboards, shrill and haunting. My very own telltale heart.