THE VERSION OF YOU THAT STAYED

You don’t remember the moment you broke—because the mind is merciful like that.It hides the exact second it decides you cannot carry everything and remain whole. What you remember instead is relief. A soft, guilty relief. Like setting down a weight you’d been pretending wasn’t heavy. You didn’t scream.You didn’t collapse.You just… left. And something stayed. ⸻ You move through life like a person who survived something unnamed.People compliment your strength.They say things like “You’re doing so well.”You nod. You smile. You agree. But sometimes—in mirrors,in windows,in the dark glass of your phone— you notice your reflection lag behind. Not much.Just enough to make your stomach tighten. ⸻ You tell yourself it’s stress. You tell yourself everyone feels hollow sometimes. But hollowness doesn’t watch you. ⸻ It begins with the dreams. You’re standing in a room you recognize but cannot place.The walls are breathing.The air smells like old apologies. Someone is sitting on the floor with their knees pulled to their chest. They look up. They have your face—but it’s worn thin, like it’s been handled too much. They don’t ask for help. They just say: “You said you’d come back.” You wake up gasping, hand over your chest,heart pounding like it’s trying to escape first. ⸻ During the day, things feel… delayed. Laughter arrives seconds late.Joy feels borrowed.Sadness shows up early, uninvited, sits too close. You start forgetting things—not important things.Just moments. The exact sound of someone’s voice.The feeling you had when you were younger and believed safety was permanent. When you try to remember, your head hurts. Like something inside you is pushing back. ⸻ You start noticing gaps. Photos from years ago where you’re smiling too hard.Videos where your eyes look past the camera, as if listening to someone else speak. You don’t remember taking them. You don’t remember being that tired. ⸻ One night, you hear knocking. Not on the door. From inside your chest. Slow.Polite.Patient. You press your palm there, breath shaking, and whisper,“Stop.” The knocking stops. That’s worse. ⸻ You finally understand the truth in pieces—the way the brain reveals horrors gently, so it doesn’t fracture again. You didn’t repress the pain. You partitioned it. You took everything unbearable—the fear,the shame,the night you weren’t protected,the moment you realized no one was coming— and you put it somewhere safe. You put it in you. Just not the part that kept living. ⸻ The version of you that stayed behindlearned the sound of your heartbeat from the inside. Learned how loneliness echoes when there’s no future to aim for. Learned how long a second can lastwhen you’re trapped inside it. ⸻ Now it wants back. Not violently. Not angrily. It doesn’t hate you. That’s the cruel part. It understands why you left. It just doesn’t understandwhy you never returned. ⸻ The dreams change. Now it’s standing closer. Now its voice sounds steadier. Now it says: “I carried it for you.”“I held it.”“I became it.” You wake up crying for reasons that don’t belong to today. ⸻ During quiet moments—on buses,in showers,right before sleep— you feel a pressure behind your eyes. Memories that aren’t quite yourspush forward. Hands trembling.A locked door.A promise made to yourself that you wouldn’t feel this ever again. You realize something horrifying: You didn’t heal. You outsourced. ⸻ Tonight, when the sadness comes for no reason—when your chest feels crowded,when your breath stutters,when you feel the urge to apologize to no one— don’t call it weakness. Don’t call it regression. That’s not you falling apart. That’s you coming back together. And it’s going to hurt. Because wholeness always does.

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