There comes a night when the story finally changes, not because anyone apologizes, but because you stop abandoning yourself to keep the peace. You replay the scenes, not to torture yourself, but to recognize the exact second you disappeared from your own body, smiled through the sting, and called it love. That recognition hurts, but it’s a clean kind of pain, the kind that tells you the numbness is wearing off.
In that ache, something small and stubborn rises: the refusal to go missing from your own life again. You start honoring the quiet no before it turns into a silent scream. You protect the softness you once treated as a liability, guarding it like something holy. You cannot rewrite the night, but you can redraw the line. And with every boundary you keep, you begin to come back to yourself.
