Shadows in colors

Vanilla... Thick in the air.... too sweet, too close. It used to mean safety. Candles on birthdays. Cookies baking in the kitchen. Now it means don’t move. The walls hummed with silence. My heart beat so loud I thought it would give me away. I could feel his shadow stretching across the room before he even spoke. The air pressed against my skin. I counted my breaths... .one, two, three......until the number stopped meaning anything. "Fifi" His voice was soft. Too soft. The kind that sounds kind until it isn’t. The smell followed him..... Everywhere.... Everywhere....... And the floor creaked......slow, deliberate. Each step heavier than the last. My throat locked. My body knew before I did. The light from the hallway flickered once, like even it wanted to disappear. I tried to make myself smaller, quieter, invisible. But the air was too thick, the sweetness too sharp....... it crawled into my lungs, coated my tongue, burned my chest...... My fingers dug into the carpet. My pulse thudded in my ears. The world was shrinking, and his shadow was filling it......... And then......... nothing but the creak of the door, and the weight of knowing it would happen again. I learned that night how sweetness could rot. And how a scent could stay long after the body heals. I never smelled vanilla the same again. It clings to me still........... in dreams, in sunlight, in every breath that’s too quiet. A ghost made of sugar, and fear, and memory.......