When you see that flicker on the screen, that’s when your heart wakes up, tells you it’s time to go home, but there’s still more paperwork to do, and it wouldn’t hurt to fill it all out for future reference.

You’re placed back in that cold room again, and there’s a girl with terrible acne asking if you’re sure you want to do this, and you spit out the speech you rehearsed in the mirror. As much as you wish she didn’t believe you, she does, and she doesn’t try to change your mind, even though you want her to. Instead she takes away all your clothes, and leaves you in gown, in a room with all the other girls, all of whom are quiet.

In fifteen minute intervals they get taken away. Still nobody is speaking. The signs on the walls are in English and Spanish, and they are all you can focus on. As more girls are taken away, you focus on the floor, the alternating dots of green and blue, red. Until it’s finally your name that they call.