Pretending at sunrise

CHAPTER FOUR 4

Chapter Four – Opening the Door

Meeting this new person felt…different. I’m not someone who gives in easily—letting people in has never come naturally. My mind always races ahead, scripting the worst-case scenarios. Most days, I keep my guard up so high I can barely see over the top.

But with her, something shifted.

I told her about my traumas, half-expecting the usual judgment or awkward silence. But she didn’t judge—she just listened. Mostly, I talked and she listened. At first, it felt strange; I’m not used to having the words pour out of me instead of hiding them inside. But the weirdness was strangely comforting…I didn’t mind doing the talking. In fact, I liked it. For the first time in a long time, I felt alive.

We vented about school—the classes we hated, the teachers who never noticed us, the exhaustion of pretending to care about things that felt pointless. She felt the same way. It was almost eerie to meet someone who saw the world a little like I did, who didn’t pretend things were fine when they weren’t. It made the weirdness feel good—a kind of magic in recognizing myself in someone else.

We talked for sixteen hours. Sixteen. Neither of us seemed to run out of things to say—stories about people we knew, reasons we laughed, things and people we judged (in that harmless, funny way that only happens when you know someone gets the joke). It was easy, comfortable, and new all at the same time.

And the more we talked, the more I wanted to meet this human in real life—to see her eyes when she laughed, to know if everything about her in messages matched the person she really was.

For once, I wasn’t thinking about how things could go wrong or building walls to protect myself. I was just…here, now, enjoying someone’s company for everything it was. And in that space, the darkness I carried felt just a little bit lighter.