I lay motionless for a long while, eyes fixed on the ceiling above me, watching the faint shadows that the lamplight outside my window cast across the plaster. They swayed and stretched with every passing car, bending into strange shapes like they were mocking me. My chest rose and fell in uneven rhythm, and though I willed them back, tears pooled stubbornly at the corners of my eyes.
I was so tired of crying. God, I was tired of it.
It felt like I had wasted half my life letting my pillow soak up the grief I couldn’t let the world see. Night after night, muffling sobs into the fabric so no one would hear, waking up with eyes puffed and sore, carrying the weight of unspoken battles like scars on my soul. Tonight, I told myself, would be different. Tonight, I wanted silence. I wanted calm
