“I don’t mean die physically, but mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.” She presses a hand to her chest, thumping it twice. “You can’t contemplate or settle or thrive when you’re living like that. I was dead and running, just trying to keep up with survival. Just making it one day. People don’t get that, you know? If they’ve never lived like that. It’s one day. A whole slew of one-day-at-a-times, just getting through, squeezing by. Always running, never expecting anything else. Never having anyone or anything but that running and fighting and dying through it.”
