He studies me for a long moment, and in that silence I feel it again—that sense of being seen too clearly, like he’s already mapped my panic, my defiance, the exact point where fear will give way to exhaustion.
“Then this gets a whole lot harder for you than it needs to be.”
My jaw tightens, and I look back to the windows, where the last of the sunset is bleeding into night. The house has gone quiet in that expensive, intentional way—no ticking clocks, no humming appliances, no signs of a life being lived. Just space. Clean lines. Stillness.
I turn back to face him in time to see him leave, just like that, as if the conversation has reached its natural end. As if he’s said precisely what he intended to and nothing more is required.
Before I can stop myself, I take a step after him. “Who are you?”
He stills.
For a moment, all I see is his back—broad shoulders, dark clothes, the fall of ink-black hair brushing the edge of the buff at his neck. He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t give me his face. Just enough of himself to remind me how solid he is. How unmoved.
“No one to you.”
He reaches out to the wall panel, his fingers moving with quiet familiarity as he adjusts the central heating, nudging the temperature higher by a degree or two. The system responds instantly, a faint whisper in the walls as warm air begins to circulate.
The kindness is infuriating. Controlled. Contained. Offered without permission or apology.
He reaches the stairs, hands now slipped into his jacket pockets. “Please. Eat.” And then he makes his way up.
I hadn’t noticed before, but the staircase doesn’t lead to just one place. It rises, then splits—two paths branching in opposite directions. It divides, like a choice. One disappears into the darker wing of the house. The other curves toward the hallway with the steel door.
He takes the left.
I see only his silhouette against the dim light, and then nothing at all.
I’m left standing there, wrapped in warmth I didn’t ask for, staring at a space where answers should be.
January 26th, 2024
Today was hard.
Ethan wouldn’t speak at first. Just sat there with his hands folded like he was waiting to be told he’d done something wrong.
He’s eight. Eight.
His shoulders hunch at the slightest shift in tone, as if his skin remembers bruises that haven’t happened yet.
When I asked him what he was afraid of, he said, “When it gets quiet.” He said quiet means someone is thinking. And when someone is thinking in his house, it never ends well. I hate that he’s learned to measure silence like that.
So I sat with him. No clipboard. No questions. Just… quiet. But a different kind. The kind that doesn’t hurt. Eventually he leaned against me. Not much. Just enough to test it.
He fell asleep like that.
Sometimes I wonder what it would take to unteach a child fear. Sometimes I wonder how many adults are just children who never got that chance.
I keep thinking about how easy it is to break someone…and how much harder it is to put them back together.
6
RETH
Flashback
Ipaint my face in silence.
The room is bare. No windows. No sound except my own breathing. I work from memory, not reflection. Black first—drawn straight across the eyes, thick enough to blur the edges of the world. It narrows my vision, forces focus. Turns everything ahead of me into target and space.
