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The apartment was too quiet that evening. My laptop sat open on the coffee table, screen glowing with the half-finished essay I hadn’t touched in an hour. Rent was due yesterday, and the reminder email from the property management company sat unread in my inbox like a bomb waiting to go off. I was nineteen, living alone for the first time, and broke in the way only a first-year college student can be—ramen for dinner, no heat when it dipped below sixty, counting change for the bus. I kept telling myself I’d figure it out by Friday. I kept lying to myself.

I wore what I always wore when...