Sugar

by Mia Ballard

There's this thing about descent—it's quiet, almost imperceptible, like the slow fade of sunlight at dusk, until you're standing in the dark wondering where the day went.

In my head, I marked each chapter of my life with the men I had loved, as if they were bookmarks in the dog-eared novel of my existence.

It turns out that once you step into darkness, it's impossible to find the exit.

In the end, it was not just her physical death I mourned but the loss of everything she had been and could never be again.