The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not the absence of sound—my apartment was never truly silent, not with the pipes humming faintly in the walls, the occasional car horn outside, or the low murmur of someone’s television leaking faintly through the floor. It was the silence inside me that startled me awake. For once, I wasn’t waking to dread, or to a to-do list already unspooling in my mind.
Instead, I woke to stillness.
The blinds were half-open, pale light slanting across the bed in broken stripes, catching dust motes in the air and turning them into lazy dancers. I lay on my side for a long time, not rushing the moment, just breathing. My hand brushed under my pillow and found the ribbon. I pulled it free, holding it against my chest. The silk warmed quickly in my palm, as if
