Sophia
I sat on the bench in the garden after taking a cold bath that evening.
I was surrounded by silence and the gentle hum of the wind brushing through the potted trees. The moon was low, casting silver streaks across the skyline, and for once, I didn’t mind the cold steel of the city. It was soothing in its stillness.
Unlike my thoughts.
No matter how hard I tried to push them away, Caleb’s voice still rang in my ears like a curse I couldn’t shake.
“You’re suffering because you left me.”
“You’re pitiful now.”
“If you want a good life, grovel before me.”
Every word was a dagger — not because I believed them, but because of how easily he assumed he could still tear me down.
Like my worth began and ended with him.
Like everything I was, everything I could be, was somehow bou
