I sipped the coffee again. Normally, I wouldn't think that this would calm me down at all. After a long day at work, the last thing I would want is more caffeine. As it turned out, I had a single-serve decaf from a hotel I went to a few months ago. I mixed it with cream, sugar, cinnamon, and caramel, and sat down at my breakfast nook to drink it.

I say breakfast nook. I mean the folding chair I set up by the only window in my shoebox of an apartment. This life is a cramped one with little room for rest. I spend what little free time I have here or on my bed, either reading or staring off into space. At the end of the day, I'm too exhausted to engage in much of anything else.

At this point, I was thinking, particularly about other Elizabeths. My mom was Elizabeth. I share two out of three of her names. I would have shared all three if it weren't for the patriarchal norms of Western society, but I digress.

I looked down at the cup in my hands. I put the coffee in a mug even though I didn't need or want it to stay hot. I was letting it cool.

I looked down at the cup. Was this all there was to it?

I found myself thinking about other Elizabeths again-- Lizzie Borden, Elizabeth Lavenza, Elizabeth Wong from my sixth-grade English class-- all the other Elizabeths I have ever known about or heard of. They have had lives I could only dream of. Lizzie Borden convinced a jury that she had not killed her parents when she so clearly did, my mother recently retired from a lucrative teaching career, Elizabeth Wong was working for Google at the ripe age of twenty, and Elizabeth Lavenza... She got murdered by her brother/husband's angry child. It didn't end well for her.

I wonder what I would have done, if I were in her shoes. I wonder if I could have changed anything about her prewritten fate. If I were there, I think I could have stopped it. I would have saved her.

I saw my own reflection in the milky top of the coffee, where the whipped cream was melting into the liquid. I saw my hair, dyed black, falling out of the bun I put it in. The thing was, I could see someone else, with fair hair, a sweet face, and eyes full of soul and life. She looked nothing like me.

I know my face well. I always have. I know my strong jaw and the shape of my nose. It was once my grandmother's, passed on to me like every other broad, bold feature I own. When I looked at the girl in the coffee, my vision went a little fuzzy. Things started to spin, like I was swooning, like I was faint. It was like one of those transitions from an old Batman show, zooming in and out over and over again. On the other end of it, there was no extra scene. There was just darkness.

And I was dragged, unwillingly, into it.