Seventy-three more hours of sleep
Once upon a time there was a little girl.
This little girl lived happily in blissful peace for many years because long ago she had made a promise to herself.
The promise was ring, a thin band of silver that she used to be able to wear on her thumb but as she grew and got bigger the ring had to move over her fingers as the band got smaller and smaller. Finally it rested on her pinky, but as she didn't like having it so exposed on the very end of her hand she decided to move it to a necklace and she wore that necklace every day.
The ring was one of the few things that kept her grounded, kept her sane.
The promise was to keep secret all of those awful things she had been through as a child. The ring was the physical embodiment of that promise.
When she was older the ring started to fall apart. She had had it for many years and it was tarnished, dinged up and threatening to break.
One day, when the girl was forced to face the secrets of the past her ring disappeared. It was not on her necklace when she woke up in the morning to put it on. It was not on the floor, or under the bed, or in her dresser. She could not find the ring and she realized sadly that it was gone forever.
The thing is, it wasn't a faerie tale. It was a true story. I just didn't know it yet.