Breathing was hard. Short shallow breaths were okay. Anything more than that triggered sharp pains like knives running up the outer edges of my rib cage. Even though I knew the pain was out there waiting for me to make a mistake, breathing was so automatic that I would forget and then the knives would cut again.

I don’t know how long I lay there. Moving was a recipe for pain. The only thing I could do was lay there and think.

First I ran through my ex-girlfriends. I remembered Ashley’s grin that seemed to eat up her whole face. Sometimes it could flip from mischievous to malicious in an instant. I remembered Donna’s strut. She wore the tightest jeans she could find but somehow she always managed to dance. I guess that was her thing. Even confined, she danced. Lastly, but most dear to my heart, was Heather. She was a cow-girl through and through. She lived the cliche with hat, truck, and guitar. By campfire light, she sang the saddest songs.

With a pang in my chest, I wondered if any of them still lived.