It had been hours since I locked myself inside my room.
The light outside my window had shifted from pale afternoon to the dull blue of evening, and then to full darkness, but I hadn’t moved. I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet hum of the house, feeling like I had folded back into an old version of myself I thought I’d buried.
Hiding.
Running.
I hated how familiar it felt.
I was tired of running. Tired of flinching at names, places, memories. Tired of acting like my past was something that could still hunt me if I stood still for too long. I had worked too hard to get here. I had bled too much to heal this far just to fall apart over one sentence from a guy who didn’t even know me.
My cousin knows you.
The words crept back in no matter how hard I pushed th
