It was quiet.
I don’t know if it was because my mind was too tired to process anything, or if the world had truly gone still but everything felt silent. My eyes were heavier than the burdens I’d carried for years. Maybe it was the lack of sleep two nights without rest, trapped in a storm of thoughts that refused to settle. I was paralyzed by emotion.Still, I tried to pull myself off the bed. I had to. I always had to. I came from a world where taking a break when life got too hard felt like a luxury — a privilege reserved for people who could afford to fall apart. I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t allowed to pause. So, I got up. That’s what I did.
But the moment I stood, my heart clenched.
Tears began to fall — slow, uninvited — and I couldn’t stop them.
The pillar had collapsed.
Eliot.
My best friend. My so-called brother.
The same boy I once called my pillar in Chapter 1 — the one I held up so he wouldn’t fall — he didn’t just collapse. He collapsed on me.
Everything came crashing down.
It felt like the world was slipping from my hands.
The life I had worked so hard to build, the one I dreamed of… it was fading like smoke. The ticking in my head got louder, crueler — but I had no choice. I had to move forward. That’s what I always did.My memory dragged me back to a time long before the betrayals — when life broke me in smaller, quieter ways.When I got beaten up, or mocked, or humiliated at school, I never went to the teacher.
I went to the only person I trusted:
My mother.
She’d sit beside me on the edge of the bed and hum this one song — I never knew the name, but it didn’t matter. That melody… it was a dimly lit candle in my darkest nights. It gave me warmth. It made me feel seen, even when the rest of the world tried so hard to make me invisible. Her voice was soft, broken in places, but it stitched up wounds no one else could see. She didn’t just sing — she reminded me that I was still human when everything else told me I wasn’t.
It’s strange how sound can save a soul.
That memory gave me just enough strength. I got up and got dressed.
My life was in pieces, but I had responsibilities.
My problems always came second.
My clients came first.
But as I checked my phone, the date flashed on the screen like an explosion —
I’d been gone for two days.
Two days. Dead to the world.
Two days of silence, sleep, and spiraling.
I rushed out the door, suitcase in hand, hoping I wasn’t too late.When I walked into the office, everything felt... off.
People stared at me — some with concern, others with pity.
Their eyes were full of questions, but no one asked them out loud.
Then I saw it.
Someone was sitting in my chair.
The clients were supposed to be across the desk — not where I sat, not in the seat I fought years to earn.
Why was someone else there?
Confused, I marched into my boss’s office. I needed answers.
But all I got was silence —
followed by a few carefully chosen words.
Words that shattered me.
I was fired.
Fired from the very job I’d burned years of my life for.
Fired from the title I worked through blood, pain, and sleepless nights to earn.No matter how far I ran from my past,
No matter how high I climbed to escape it…
I always fell right back into that same hellhole.
Failure.
My oldest friend.
Comments (1)
See all