was not an easy one, nor was it an uncommon one. She had no memory of her birth family, rather, her childhood was a series of vignettes set in a number of foster homes and orphanages. She didn’t settle into one single place until the age of 9 when things had finally started to go her way. 

 

Her family made her feel safe and loved, which made sense since they kept her safe and they loved her very much. They were the only adults that could look past the scar that was carved into her right hand as a toddler. The scar was two lines, each grotesque in a way that one could tell that the inflicted wound was etched repeatedly and never treated. It was distorted and misshapen, having grown in size alongside her hand and now some thought it looked like the letter L. She didn’t think so. She didn’t like thinking about it at all, really, but it always looked more like the number 7 to her. 

 

That was the past and Helen was always a future-facing child. From wretched origins she would rise and never look back. 

 

Life happened for awhile in that way that it does; slow moments that tick by so quickly they make you wonder what had happened. Dull days and wasted weekends which spun the head with their brevity. She became enamored with school. She wasn’t much of a reader, she was much more a visual and practical learner. Nothing made her mind click like doing something with her own hands. Her zealous enthusiasm held up until her junior year of university where she was studying with the intent to leave her college with a masters degree in biology. 

 

If it weren’t that passion pursuit of a passion, the desire to put her past behind her and forge ahead then things may have continued on forever in this way. . 

 

Studying is exhausting, anyone could tell you that. What some people never tell is the danger of driving while tired and the honors society building was available to students at all hours of the night. It was around four a.m. when she decided that sleeping in her own bed to reruns of The Office was better than hazily staring at more blurry words. 

 

The drive was not long and she had done enough times to be making little shortcuts for herself. She knew exactly when to turn on Lincoln Avenue to just barely avoid clipping the curb. It saved almost no time at all but she lived for these little efficiencies. A corner shaved is a corner that can be spent later. 

 

This was the best driving near campus. In the early February hours the barren tree clawed over the road, always threatening to snatch whatever was beneath them but never quite finding the courage to go and do it. 

 

She didn’t see him coming. Nobody could have, with his hood up and the foggy morning light obscuring everything. He emerged from the trees and, well, walking may be too generous a term, but he stumbled into the road. the why wasn’t her concern. The why was for investigators and local paper readers. Those are the people with the luxury to ask why this hobbling man was jettisoned from the forest at this hour of the morning. The only thing on her mind were the facts.

 

She hit him doing 48 in a 30. 

 

Her phone had died an hour ago, there was no way to get an ambulance fast enough but still she tried her best to stay with the body. The headlights behind her were blinding. She got a good look at his face and felt a weakening pulse. She had never been trained in CPR so she hoped that movies had taught her well enough. 

 

As she placed her hands over his heart, the beat of ‘stayin alive’ by The Bee Gees silent on her lips, she saw it. She felt it. 

 

The back of her hand never read ‘L’.

 

It didn’t say 7.

 

It said 6.