My body moves before my brain catches up habit, not will. Bathroom. Mirror. The woman who stares back at me looks likeshe’s been living on the edge of something sharp. Eyes bruised by sleepless nights, lips dry, skin pale enough to fade.
I used to know her. Now she’s just… tired.
The water from the shower hits too hot, a sting that feels almost like penance. Steam clouds around me until I can’t see anything but the blur of it. I close my eyes and press my forehead to the tiles.
Blake’s voice is still there. Dane’s hands. Carrie’s voice echoing, asking questions I don’t know how to answer. The magazine piece blinking at me from my laptop screen like a dare.
They live in my head, all of them, tangled like wires.
I breathe in the steam, slow and deep, until my lungs burn. You’re alive, I remind myself. Even if you wish you weren’t some mornings.
By the time I step out, the mirror’s fogged over. Good. I don’t want to see myself anyway.
I pull on the first clothes I find denim, a shirt that still smells faintly like the ocean from last weekend’s drive. I knot my hair up, not because it looks good but because it’s one less thing to think about.
The smell of coffee fills the kitchen, bitter and grounding. I pour it black. The way Blake used to. I hate that I still make it like he liked it. I sip it anyway. It burns my tongue.
The house is too quiet. It hums with everything unsaid.
I need air.
Barefoot, I step outside. The grass is wet, the early morning kind of damp that seeps into your bones. The wind lifts the ends of my hair, cool against my neck. The world feels half-awake, fragile and soft in that brief space before the noise starts.
I walk the path I could follow blindfolded. The one that leads to her.
The flowers are wild now dahlias, daisies, lavender pushing through the soil like they’ve got something to prove. The petals move with the breeze, alive, defiant.
I kneel. The damp earth soaks through my jeans, clings to my palms as I dig my fingers in.
“Morning, baby,” I whisper.
My voice cracks. The sound barely makes it out.
I trace her name on the small plaque half-hidden under the flowers. My thumb follows each letter, memorising it again and again, like the world might take it from me if I stop. The air smells of wet grass and earth, of grief that never really leaves.
My chest aches, slow and deep, the kind of pain that feels stitched into my skin.
I close my eyes and let the wind move around me. I imagine it’s her. That soft rush. That warmth. That whisper of something still here.
The tears come quietly, like they always do. Not sobs, just… leaking. A silent surrender.
When I finally stand, my knees are damp, my coffee’s cold, and the day is waiting like it doesn’t care what it’s taken from me.
Blake.
Dane.
The piece I still have to write. Carrie, watching me unravel and pretending not to.
They all live somewhere inside the blur.
My phone vibrates in the pocket of my skirt. A shiver through the quiet. I don’t even have to look to know it’s one of them.
Still, I do. Because I always do.
Morning, Peach. Don’t drown today.
I stare at the words until they blur. No punctuation. No demand. Just that small mercy of being seen.
