Maybe what we fear most is not the breaking, but breaking where someone can see us. The cat has never cared about that line. It pads across the threshold without ceremony, as if your collapse were the most natural landscape in the world. Its small body settles against you, not as cure, not as commentary, but as proof that something living still chooses to be near. In that quiet, you realize how rare it is to be witnessed without being fixed, managed, or hurried back into shape.
The old myths dressed this in fire and prophecy; reality is gentler and more unsettling. A warm, indifferent creature refuses to abandon the version of you you’re most certain is unlovable. No speeches, no demands — just a weight that will not move. In that shared stillness, the question shifts from “How do I stop breaking?” to “What if I don’t have to do it alone?”
