It's not a big deal, not really, but it still comes to mind sometimes and it’s stupid that it does, but it does. Like a splinter that’s too deep to get out easy, you know? And it was back in college, years and years ago, when you’re still so green and haven’t learned what’s what yet, and you think every little thing is a mountain. My head was already thrumming that day, like a hive of angry bees behind my eyes, and the light felt like needles, and I’d just wanted to curl up in the dark under a blanket and let it all fade, let the pressure ease, but my roommate, she had this big party to go to and she’d been on about it for days, and she needed me to go, just for a bit, so she wouldn't be alone, and I felt this tightening in my chest, a real physical clenching, because to say no, well, that felt like a betrayal, like I was letting her down and that was a thing you just didn't do, not when someone was counting on you. It was always about not being a burden, not causing trouble, keeping the peace, and that’s how we were raised, you know, my mother always said you make do, you don’t complain, and that little voice in my head, it just wouldn’t quiet down. So I went, and the music was a hammer blow, every beat a new spike driven right into my skull, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and cheap beer, and it felt like being trapped in a bell, and every conversation was a shouted blur, and I just kept trying to focus on her, on my roommate, because she was laughing and dancing and she was so happy, and that was the important thing, wasn't it? Her happiness, her feeling okay, and my own head felt like it might just split open, but you put a face on, don’t you? You always do. You just keep smiling and nodding and trying to appear normal, even when inside you’re a quivering mess, a bag of raw nerves. And I remember standing there, leaning against a wall, and the kaleidoscope of lights from the dance floor was just making it worse, making my stomach churn, and I was counting the minutes until I could politely excuse myself, until it wouldn’t seem rude or ungrateful, and it felt like an eternity, like hours had passed and it was only ten minutes, and the throbbing just intensified, a relentless, rhythmic pain, a real occipital neuralgia kind of pain, I know that now, but then it was just… too much. And I got home eventually, slipped out when she was distracted, and just collapsed, and the relief was like a sudden drop in altitude, and I thought, “Well, that’s that,” but it still pops into my head, this little movie of that night, and I still feel that strange, hollow ache in my chest, that residual sensation of something missed or something given away that you can’t ever get back. Like a tax you pay without even knowing the assessment. And you wonder, sometimes, what it would have been like, just to say, “No. My head hurts. I can’t.” And if the world would have ended. But you never do, do you? Not really. Not when you’re brought up that way. And you just live with the quiet hum of the things you sacrificed, little things, but they add up, and they sit there, sometimes, like a pile of dusty old pennies in a jar.