The water answered with its own simple insistence.Here. Now. This.
I washed my face. Shampooed my hair. Stood there longer than necessary, counting seconds as spray thudded against my shoulders. One. Two. Ten. Each exhale a little less jagged.
By the time I turned the handle off, my fingers had pruned and were no longer trembling with panic.
I wrapped a towel around me. Cotton against damp skin. The mirror was completely fogged; only a vague shape stared back when I wiped a small circle clear.
My phone waited where I’d left it.
Me: Just got out. You were right. That helped.
Read: I’m glad. I know that took effort. How are you feeling now?
Me: Less like I’m going to disintegrate. More like I’m just… tired.
Read: That’s a pretty big shift. I’ll take it. Do you want to talk about what happened, or do you want distraction?
The question hung there, dense and heavy.
Every instinct screamed for distraction. Tell him about a documentary. Make a joke. Slide back into safe, curated banter. He’d let me. He’d follow my lead. He always did.
But underneath that instinct was something else. The small, raw ache that had been ignored for so long it barely knew its own name, and I was too tired to fight it.
Me: I’m the CEO of a failing company called Elion.
Me: I had a meeting with Falkirk today—the only company that can save us. It… wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t secure either. Elion’s investors called right after. They don’t think any of it was enough. They want proof I can make Falkirk move faster than they ever will. They want a miracle. I gave them an invitation to a second meeting, and they said it was nothing.
I stared at the paragraph, then hit send. The dam cracked. A thin, jagged line splitting open, the truth leaking out drop by drop.
Me: I keep replaying every word. Every look. Every laugh.
Me: Margaret taps her pen. The sound won’t leave me alone.
Me: Nothing will leave me alone. They won’t. I won’t.
The next admission lodged in me, corrosive, humiliating, but truer than anything I’d ever typed.
Me: I hear voices in my head. They say horrible things about me. Sometimes in my mother’s or father’s voice. Sometimes Candace’s. Sometimes the investors’. They all scream at me.
I hit send.
The confession sat there, exposed. Irretrievable.
Then my thumbs moved, barely pausing between messages.
Me: It feels like everyone is waiting for me to prove I’m not a mistake. And today just confirmed I am.
Me: And then you texted to ask how it went, and I told you to leave me alone because apparently I can sabotage anything in under ten seconds.
The last one burned.
I sank down onto the edge of the bed, wet hair streaming down my back.
Read: Thank you for telling me.
I cocked my head.
Notwow, that’s a lot.
