She watches me again, more directly this time. “You don’t tell people to calm down.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t work.”
She nods slowly. “Fair.”
She sets the flyer aside completely, hands resting on the table.
“I don’t like that it’s always in my head now.”
“What is?”
“Everything.” She gestures lightly. “Doors, people, sounds. Who’s around. Who isn’t. It’s like my brain won’t switch off.”
I lean back a little, giving her space to say it without crowding her.
“Mine doesn’t either.”
Her brows draw together. “Yeah, but that’s… you.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t always.”
She looks at me, recalibrating everything.
“I just got used to it,” I add.
Her expression tightens. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”
She picks up another flyer, folding it slower now, less about precision and more about having something to do with her hands.
“Does it go away?”
I think about it. Everything that came before this. Everything that sticks around longer than it should.
“It doesn’t disappear,” I say. “But it settles. Gets quieter. Stops feeling like it’s running the whole show.”
She nods, filing that away. “I can work with quieter.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You can.”
She looks at me again, hesitating this time. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you scared?”
That one doesn’t come up often. Not in such a direct manner.
I could brush it off. Make it into something lighter, easier to carry.
I don’t.
“Yeah,” I say.
