CELESTE:
I am not the woman people want me to be.
I know that now.
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, one leg tucked under me, the other hanging uselessly like I might stand up or might not. The room smells like detergent and old air. Clean, but not comforting. I keep folding the same shirt over and over, sharper creases each time, like precision might save me from thinking.
It doesn’t.
Silence didn’t save me. It just gave other people room to speak for me.
I didn’t leave because I stopped loving Ethan. That’s the version everyone prefers. It’s clean. It makes me the villain and the story efficient.
I left because loving him started to feel like disappearing politely.
Everyone wants a dramatic reason. A betrayal. A fight. A final sentence slammed like a door.
It wasn’t that.
It w
