Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 30

But Mom... what if in doing that, I forgot to see my own light?

What if I’ve spent so long keeping others warm that I never noticed I was freezing?

What if I’ve convinced myself that my worth only exists in how useful I am to other people?

I don't want to carry everyone anymore.

Not like this.

Not when the weight of their wounds makes me forget my own are still bleeding.

I want to love James. I want to hold him when he shakes and tell him I’ll never leave.
But I also want someone to notice when I’m the one trembling.
I want someone to say, “You don’t always have to be strong.”

I don’t want to break quietly just to keep the world around me whole.

Maybe strength isn’t always about holding it together.
Maybe it’s in saying, “I can’t keep doing this alone.”
Maybe love doesn’t mean saving someone. Maybe it just means choosing each other, fully, honestly, even when it’s messy.

I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt.
The morning light had started to bleed through the curtains, soft and slow.
The kind of light that doesn’t ask you to be okay.

Just... to be.

And for now, maybe that’s enough.

I blinked against the morning haze, the dream still clinging to my skin like cold mist. My hands moved on instinct, reaching for the one thing that felt familiar, steady, my phone.

7:12 AM.

I stared at the blank message box for a while, the cursor blinking like a quiet heartbeat. Then, I typed:

"Good morning, handsome."

Simple. Soft. A little warmth folded between two words I hadn’t said to anyone else before.

His reply came less than a minute later.

"Good morning, sunshine."

He attached a photo.

My heart thudded before I even opened it. It was him, sitting upright in bed, wearing a wrinkled white shirt, hair in gentle disarray like he’d just rolled out of a dream. But it wasn’t his smile that caught me. It was his eyes.

Puffy. Sunken. Red.
He cried.

The realization landed in my chest with a quiet thud. I knew that look too well. The kind of crying you do when no one is watching, when the tears have nowhere to go but inward. I knew it because I wore it, too, on different days. I wore it when the world wasn’t looking, when I was strong in public and falling apart in private.

My thumb hovered over the keyboard.

I wanted to say something, ask, Are you okay? Did you sleep? Did the voices in your head finally quiet down, even just a little?

But sometimes, silence says more than questions ever could.

So instead, I just typed:

"See you later, my love."

Then I pressed send, placed the phone on my nightstand, and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

I peeled off my bedsheet like it weighed more than it should and dragged myself to the bathroom. The tiles were cold beneath my feet, and the fluorescent light stung a little. But I turned on the shower anyway, the hiss of water rising like static.

Steam wrapped around me, and I stood there a moment before stepping in, letting it soak into my skin, into the cracks. Like maybe, just maybe, it could soften the stiffness in my chest.