That suffering opens your eyes to beauty just as it threatens to close them forever.That the very moments when you're closest to losing everything are when you finally understand what everything means.
Time is this relentless river that carries us all downstream whether we're swimming or drowning.We think we have so much of it—endless summers, conversations and moments.Now I know we're all living on borrowed moments.Each heartbeat is a loan from a universe that doesn't guarantee renewal.
I guess that's what wisdom really is—not having all the answers but finally asking the right questions.
Why do we wait until we're losing something to realize we had it?
Why does it take darkness to make us appreciate light?
Why does the clock only sound loud when we're lying awake at 3 AM wondering if we've wasted all our time?
Yes, we're all on borrowed time, but so is the sun, so are the stars.So is everything that ever was or will be.
Everything is temporary and although I know that to be true, it still doesn't make the nightmares go away.
It's been eight months since I clawed my way back from the edge of something unspeakable, back from metal and glass and red lights flashing like warnings across my vision.
The nightmare always starts the same way—headlights cutting through darkness like some fucked-up metaphor for death I'd normally roll my eyes at in English class.
But here I am, living inside the cliché, watching those twin suns grow larger, brighter, inevitable.
Then impact hits like the world's worst plot twist.
My world implodes in a symphony of destruction.
The hood crumples like paper, the sound of buckling metal so loud it becomes a physical thing, rattling my bones and rupturing the quiet night.The windshield splinters in slow motion—a spiderweb of cracks blooming outward before dissolving into a thousand glittering daggers.They catch the streetlight as they hurtle toward me, beautiful and lethal, slicing skin and embedding themselves in my flesh.
It becomes like a movie, one I can't hit stop on because the rewind button is the only one working.I'm an active observer watching my near death over and over again, trapped in this endless loop where I can only witness, never escape.
The seatbelt locks, the force still isn't enough to wake me from this endless loop in hell, crushing into my ribcage with such force I swear I hear bones crack.
The silence that follows is worse than the chaos.
My vision blurs, edges going soft and dark, but I can still see my hands trembling against the deflated airbag, still feel the warm wetness spreading across my forehead.
This is where I always try to scream, try to claw my way back to consciousness, but the nightmare holds me fast.Forces me to relive every microsecond of metal meeting metal, of physics and flesh colliding in ways they were never meant to.
"Nora.Nora, wake up."
The voice cuts through the wreckage like a lifeline.Soft but insistent, familiar as my own heartbeat.
"Nor, wake up."Camilla's voice.
Her hands on my shoulders, gentle but firm, pulling me back from the edge.My eyes snap open, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat that feels too much like blood.
The taste of copper lingers even as the nightmare dissolves.
“Hey, you're okay.You're okay."Camilla's face hovers above mine, her dark hair creating a curtain around us both.
Her fingers brush the damp strands from my forehead with the practiced tenderness of someone who's done this too many times.
I try to speak but my throat feels raw, like I've been screaming.
Wait, have I been screaming?
The thin walls of our London flat don't hide much.
"Same one?"she asks, settling on the edge of my bed.
