Steph

“The day's pressure wells up in her chest, as if the devil himself is sitting on it, breaking her sternum, forcing her to feel everything she doesn't want to feel. After Cyrus had his first heart attack, he told her the pain was like an elephant sitting on his ribs. After his second one, the one that killed him, her heart felt like it was breaking, but today she feels the pain Cyrus described. She should feel relief, because it's not a heart attack and not an elephant, but she can't, because this pain comes from the whole world, crushing her lungs with the weight of all its trage-dies. It's the stress of solving an unsolvable puzzle, of making sense of the nonsensical.”
― Kristin Koval, Penitence