Choater51 I am not healing to be who I was before
There was a garden behind the facility.
No flowers.
Just soil. Dry. Refusing to bloom.
Kind of like me.
---
I sat on the bench and stared at the earth.
Not thinking.
Just… existing.
It was the first time I felt my body without flinching.
> No one touching me.
No one demanding progress.
No one correcting my story.
---
And for a moment —
a moment so brief I almost missed it —
I forgot what it felt like to be watched.
---
Until he appeared again.
Not loud. Not guilty.
Just there.
Holding a cup of tea like it made him harmless.
> "It's peaceful out here," he said.
> "Everything feels peaceful when you're not the one being dug up," I replied.
He sat beside me anyway.
---
> "You're different now," he said quietly.
> "No. I'm visible now," I corrected.
"That's not the same thing."
---
He stared at the dirt like it had the answers he couldn't say aloud.
> "You were strong even when you were breaking," he murmured.
I looked at him for a long time.
> "You don't get to romanticize what you refused to rescue."
---
He swallowed. Hard.
> "I didn't know how—"
> "You didn't want to."
---
That shut him up.
And in the silence, I felt taller.
Not because I won.
But because I finally didn't need to.
---
I stood up.
> "You can keep the bench," I said.
"But not the memory."
---
And just like that, I walked away…
Leaving footprints behind that didn't shake.