On certain days of the year, Ginger is liquid energy that trickles like grains of sand through an hourglass, leaving an emptiness where vigor had once been. She gives china doll smiles that crack around the edges and takes almost nothing in return, including the small Tylenol pills that are sometimes left forgotten on the kitchen counter. On these mornings, she shuffles into the bathroom in worn, pink slippers, burning at one-oh-one degrees and freezing in thin pajamas. Her reflection peers back at her, tired and shivering and face flushed a rosy red, and it takes everything she has just to reach for the toothbrush.

Breakfast is less than a hundredth of a pancake and two sips of orange juice, after which Ginger thinks she can't possibly stomach any more food than that. There is a post-it note on the refrigerator: Don't forget the medicine! -Mom and two Tylenol pills on the kitchen counter, arranged neatly beside a glass of water. The digital clock on the counter glows 7:00 and Ginger thinks of zero-point-seven lead and number two pencils. She imagines thick booklets and rows of unfilled bubbles on blue scantrons and a squared plus b squared equals c squared; as if the thoughts alone serve to magnify the dull pounding in the back of her head. Resignedly, she swallows the medicine and drinks half the glass in one gulp before getting ready for the next three hours of her life.

Two miles down the road heading towards Gunn High School, and Ginger suddenly remembers the registration form she left on her desk the night before, a convenient reminder to herself which she has conveniently forgotten. Hastily, she makes a U-turn and presses down on the gas pedal, speedometer hovering just above forty as the speed limit sign whizzes by in its startling 30 mph. It's 7:53 when she finally walks through the test room's door and claims the last available seat, next to a girl with faded pink highlights and a smile too bright for the SAT reasoning test. She smooths out her registration form and gazes distractedly at her assigned registration number, pencil moving automatically to fill out the required information on the scantron. Her mind is in a light haze from the Tylenol, synthetic energy replacing where real energy is lacking, and she inwardly hopes she doesn't look as worn as she feels. The pink-haired girl cannot sit still, fidgeting from an anxious excitement that Ginger does not reciprocate. She decidedly ignores the girl and thinks about the grains of sand that make up the sixty seconds of one minute, the sixty minutes of one hour before turning to the first page of the test. They begin, and the best thing Ginger can do is to envision a china doll smile to keep herself going.

Four hours later, she is sitting in her car, fiddling with the radio while the air conditioning is on full blast to counter the stifling June heat. Her fever skirts along the edges of ninety-nine degrees, suppressed by Tylenol and but still there and leaving her with a deep ache in her bones that doesn't fade, be it from the stress of junior year or the impending illness. For a moment, she desperately wishes she is a senior and it is the last day of school, and envisions herself at the beach, ankle deep in seawater as the sand dips and forms an island under her feet every time the sea flows and ebbs. She is two weeks from the real meaning of summer with the wind whipping past her hair and the sand between her toes, and time falling away behind her quietly. She is not sick and it is not June, and she can't quite remember what the SAT stands for. It's a vision so faraway that Ginger dare not think any further, lest she forgets to pick up the few pieces of junior year still ahead of her before retiring to a summer of college applications. With a heavy twist of the key, she pulls out of the parking lot and heads home, mind already spinning with the thoughts of leftover homework.

Ten years later, Ginger unpacks the last box and straightens, gazing proudly at her mantelpiece. She places the final decor piece in the very middle, a slightly cracked porcelain doll with soft black hair and a wispy smile, and takes a step back. With a dust of her hands, she sweeps the car keys off the dinner table and slings her handbag over her shoulder before making her way out the door, the pile of research still untouched on her desk. Later, she stands on the edge of the sea with her toes deep in a mixture of sand and seawater, and feels more freedom than she ever has. She remembers china doll smiles and Tylenol pills and the SATs, thinks back to the pile of papers sitting on her desk in her new apartment, and no longer feels the wistfulness she had once felt as a junior.

Yeah, she thinks with a smile, it's not over just yet.

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