The first time Justdanica broke, she was seven.
When the tears stopped, the rain had stopped, too. The world smelled like wet asphalt and something green—something growing.
That was three years ago. Today, she is thirty-two. She still works nights, but now she keeps a journal in her locker—a blue one with a cracked spine. She still holds dying children’s hands, but now she lets herself cry in the break room afterward, and the other nurses don’t stare. They bring her tea.
“Don’t cry,” her mother whispered from the doorway, not looking at her. “We don’t cry.”