Unwritten scars

I've refolded the same shirt like four times now. It's not even about whether it goes on top. My hands just need something to do so they'll stop shaking. Tomorrow, I leave for college. I keep waiting to actually feel something about it. Excited, nervous, whatever. Everyone acts like leaving home is supposed to be this huge moment, and maybe it is, but right now I mostly just feel tired. The kind where your body is still, but your head won't shut up. Because here's the part nobody else knows. I'm not just leaving for school. I'm hoping I'm leaving everything else too. Nobody at that college knows anything about me. Not what happened. Not the stuff I've been dragging around for years like a backpack full of rocks I never asked for. Nobody there has watched me flinch at something small and then looked at me differently because of it. I get to just be Miley. Whoever that actually is without all the rest of it stuck to me. I know how that sounds. Like a suitcase can fix something this messed up. I'm not that naive. But some annoying part of me still wants to believe that if I get far enough away, none of it can reach me anymore. I don't know yet how wrong I am. Tonight, I still get to believe it. --- My mom knocked before she came in. Not that it ever actually stopped her. "You should be sleeping," she said, sitting on the edge of my bed. "Big day tomorrow." "I will. In a bit." She looked at my suitcase by the door, already zipped, as if it had left without me. Then she looked at me the way she sometimes does, like she's trying to read handwriting she used to know and doesn't anymore. "You know you can call us. Anytime. Doesn't matter what it's about." "I know, Mom." "I mean it. College is a lot. New people, new pressure—" She stopped, choosing her words carefully, the way she does with me, like I might crack if she pushed too hard. "Just don't shut everyone out the second things get hard, okay? Let people in a little." I picked at the zipper on my suitcase instead of answering right away. "I know how to handle myself," I said. Not mean. Just flat. She nodded slowly, as if she had more to say but decided against it. My dad showed up a minute later with the same tired look he always wears. He ends his goodbyes the same way every single year, like it's a ritual he doesn't realize he's repeating. Stay sharp, kid. The world doesn't wait for anybody. Then the rest: work hard, stay safe, don't isolate yourself, we love you. I know they mean it. Somewhere under the numbness, I know this is just how they love me. But I've heard some version of this every year for as long as I can remember. It sounds like concern, except it's aimed at parts of me they've never actually tried to understand. They don't know what being guarded cost me. They act like I chose this for fun, like being closed off is just a personality thing and not something I built because the alternative hurt worse. So I let it wash over me. Said the right things back. I know. I will. I promise. When they finally left, and the house went quiet, I lay there staring at the ceiling, not feeling much of anything. Maybe that's the sad part. Not that they don't get me. I stopped expecting that ages ago. It's that I'm so used to it now that even tonight barely lands. Tomorrow, I start over. I don't know if starting over is just a nicer word for running away. I don't really want to know. All I know is that somewhere on that campus, in a dorm room I haven't even seen, there's a version of me waiting that nobody's decided anything about yet. I plan on keeping it that way for now I close my eyes and, for the first time in a while, let myself imagine a life where nobody's asking what's wrong with me, where nobody's watching me, waiting for me to mess up or flinch or go quiet. I don't know that college has other plans for me. Some things follow you no matter how far the drive is. But tonight, I let myself believe it's that easy. Tonight, that's enough