I didn’t leave my cabin for the rest of the day.
Not for breakfast.
Not for the snow-covered paths.
Not even for the view I had admired so much when I arrived.
I stayed inside, wrapped in silence, letting the hours stretch and blur together. The fire crackled softly, but it didn’t warm the cold that had settled inside me. I moved from the bed to the couch, from the couch to the window, and back again, like a ghost haunting her own room.
I told myself I needed rest.
I told myself isolation was healing.
But the truth was uglier.
I was spiraling.
Every quiet moment gave my thoughts space to run, and they ran straight back to places I hated. The dining room. Aiden’s voice. The way everyone had gone still. The scrape of my chair. The familiar burn of humiliation.
It felt too close to
