They lead me into a large, white room, speckles of dust glimmering on the barren walls.

It’s a dark white, not the nice, snowy kind that I’ve grown to know and love. No, this is that vacant, ominous white, the color of a blank page and a lonely life to come, the kind they’d use to detain someone who believes that there are different shades of white. Someone like me.

Because white’s calm. White’s sane. They’d like to see someone make crazy out of white, and dear God I will try.

I hear a woman screaming a biblical name. It’s mine, I recall, as I slip into first, a little late, just like always. I should turn my feet out—point my toes—or do I even dance ballet anymore?

The doors close and the key clicks into the lock. Now there’s no turning back, and I almost laugh.

As if there ever was.

And then I come to the realization that this is it. This is my life, and all it’s ever going to be, just me and this large, plain room, gazing up above, trying to characterize the shade of white on the walls.

From a distance, I hear rushing water.

It reminds me of my father.

And that’s how I knew I wasn’t crazy.