The racks of cheap jewelry clatter, sterling silver bangles and gaudy cocktail rings with plastic stones whirring past until they become nothing but a glittery blur. My focus has drifted and I’m staring right through them, right through everything, through the spinning baubles, through the tired-looking woman behind the counter, through the wall plastered with an advertisement featuring a model who almost looks like me, except thinner and happier, and she’s laughing with her head thrown back, as if someone she loves has just said the funniest thing.

Someone drops something that shatters, and the sound brings me back. I look down to see my fingers resting on a thin silver cuff stamped on the outside with the words, “Never, never, never give up! – Winston Churchill,” and on the inside, “Made in Taiwan.” I pull my hand away.

But it’s not my hand. It’s an alien hand, an alien who has chewed-on cuticles and an odd indentation at the base of her ring finger, a finger that is wrong and naked without your rings.