A million paths, a billion steps, a trillion decision points, that defines our lives. Doors unopened dooming or saving us, little changes leading to nothing or everything, creating fragments of what might have been. Our lives feel continuous, but in reality, they are but a series of moments, decision points, one after another, leading to who we are now, only now, while working to create who we will be, on the shoulders of what came before. Moments, that define us, closing forever doors, and futures, of ourselves.

Behind one such door, a young girl, a young me, 14, seeks escape online, letting older men use and abuse her. She cams to entertain them, seeking their approval, a sexual release from abuse that frees her temporarily from herself and her parents. An especially abusive man is trying to tear her down, telling her she is shit, she is nothing. Demanding her address, to show him she is truly a submissive and not a fake. She refuses, and in anger her tells her to get a plunger. She does, and he berates her, telling her that she is useless, to everyone. A waste of space. He tells her to fuck it, then he orders her to drop on it. No one will miss her. This version cries, but so tired of hating herself, she doesn’t hesitate. She drops on it, with all her weight. He watches as she screams and sobs, her belly growing purple, red spreading out from under her damaged body. One door closes forever.

Another door has a slightly older version, 15, sneaking to meet her first older man. He abuses her, uses her. He doesn’t toss her out when he’s done. He keeps her, naked, chained up, in her basement. At first she hates it, tries to escape, fight. But she begins to feed off the abuse, the treatment. She deserves it after all. He tells her she is shit every day, treats her as such. Shows her the search for her on TV. No one ever finds her, but one day, the door is left unlocked. She could leave any time. But she is lost to him, needs him to exist. He is her world, and all she does is for him. He doesn’t take care of her, isn’t careful, just an animal to him. And like a beaten dog she cowers at his feet. Naked. Forever looking up for approval that will never come.

Behind another door is the girl who never explored her sexuality, never played online with older men. No, but she did find that cutting, that drugs filled that emptiness that filled her. Nothing she could do would make them happy, never good enough. Careful cuts, along her thigh at first, one, two, then a dozen. Anything to feel alive, if only for a moment. School is everything to her, because her parents demand it, studying till midnight, then cutting, then sleep, just to repeat it all over. Snorting Adderall to compete, drinking to escape, slowly popping more and more pills, overwhelmed. Tired, so tired of the race, the lack of praise, until one night, one party, just taking anything she could, until they find her, covered in vomit, rushing her to the hospital. She’ll live, but only this time.