My hand trembled as if it already knew what it would lose. The metal felt colder than it should have, leaching heat from my skin. I held it too long before I moved it like a masochist chasing pain.
The air inside was stale, tinged with lavender and dust and something fainter, something ghostly and warm and gone. Her robe still hung from the hook on the bathroom door. Her slippers sat beside the bed, toes turned in like she’d just stepped out of them. The bedspread was pulled tight, corners tucked with her military precision, and the remote lay neatly on the nightstand where she always left it.
Everything was paused. Preserved. Like the room was holding its breath. So was I. For a second—a single, treacherous moment—I saw her.
Curled up on the bed, a paperback in her lap, one of those terrible true crime shows murmuring in the background. I could almost hear her laugh, that hoarse giggle she gave when she caught me sneaking snacks up to my room after midnight when I was a child.
The sound of it echoed in my chest.
That thought cracked something in me.
The walls I’d built, brick by bloody brick, split wide open. Memories didn’t drift in. They surged. Feral and relentless. They didn’t ask permission; they assaulted me, one after another, too fast, too sharp, each one cutting deeper than the last.
I was ten. Drenched and shivering. The storm I thought I could outrun had broken over me like a punishment.
Water ran from my hair, stung my eyes, and soaked the cuffs of my jeans. It filled my shoes until every step squelched. I stood in the foyer like a drowned cat—small, and miserable, shaking so hard my teeth clicked together.
She didn’t yell at me like my dad would have. She didn’t scold. She just appeared out of nowhere with that quiet, steady presence she had. That put me at ease in an instant.
She wrapped me in one of those oversized cardigans that swallowed me whole. It smelled like cinnamon and laundry soap and her—something warm and safe and impossible to name. The fabric was soft and heavy around my shoulders, still warm from her body, and she pulled me into the curve of her like I belonged there. Like that was where I was supposed to be.
Her arm fit across my back perfectly. Her hand pressed between my shoulder blades, slow and grounding, a steady weight that told my shaking body it was allowed to stop running.
No lectures. No anger. She led me to the kitchen and sat me at the island while she busied herself making me a hot drink. Her voice was husky and low as she stirred hot chocolate in a chipped white mug that had once been hers but now was mine.
“Some days, baby,”she whispered, brushing the wet hair from my forehead with gentle fingers, her thumb warm against my cold skin,“you just have to survive one breath at a time. One moment. One sip.”
The mug steamed between my hands. The heat burned my palms just enough to keep me present and stop my mind from wandering. Her fingers kept moving through my hair. Over and over in a rhythm that was almost hypnotic.
She hadn’t told me I was weak or stupid. Or made jokes at my expense. She had made me feel human. She’d made me feel seen and understood.
And now?
Breathing felt like drowning.
Every inhale scraped like glass against my ribs. Every exhale my lungs clawed for air I couldn’t reach. My throat locked around each breath like it was trying to hold me together and failing.
The weight of my grief—of knowing I would never feel her hand on my back again, never hear her voice, never be gathered into that kind of safety—hit me like a fist to the sternum.
My hand still clutched the doorknob. It shook so hard it rattled. The metal felt like it burned now, like my skin was rejecting it, like my body was begging me not to go any further.
I couldn’t step inside.
My memories were too loud. They roared like a crashing tide, drowning out everything else. I shut the door like it was an open wound. Turned. And ran, my feet moving without thought.
Downstairs, I skidded to a stop in the kitchen. Her coffee mug still sat on the counter. Lipstick smudged the rim, faded pink, like she’d just stepped out to answer the phone and would be back any second. Like my world hadn’t split in half. I grabbed it. The ceramic was warmer than I expected, as if it still held the ghost of her hands. That was what broke me.
The mug didn’t shatter as I hurled it at the floor. It hit the wooden planks giving a dull, hollow thunk then bounced, rolled, and tipped onto its side. It wobbled there for a second before settling.
Intact.
Mocking me.
Even her fucking mug refused to break.
My knees buckled. I hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Pain flared up my shins and into my hips, but I barely felt it. My arms locked around my ribs like I could keep myself from coming apart if I held on tight enough.
Rocking.
