Pa**** Posted September 25 The door shut behind him, and the house became too large. It wasn’t the kind of quiet she knew from the street. Out there, silence was just the pause before the next interruption — a siren, a drunk shout, the thud of someone else’s mistake. This was different. Heavy. Complete. The kind of quiet that made her heart beat too loud in her ears. She wandered at first, telling herself it was to stay alert. The kitchen. The hall. The bathroom with its mirror too clean to believe. She opened the closet again, touched fabric that smelled of nothing, folded too carefully for her to claim. She shut the door quickly, as if it might close on her hand. The cat followed her, tail flicking, patient as if she were the one being trained. She sat on the master bed, then stood. Sat again, stood again. Each time the mattress seemed to swallow her whole, and she couldn’t decide if it was comfort or trap. The sliding door glinted in the corner of her eye. She crossed to it, cracked it open an inch, felt the desert night breathe in. The temptation was there — always there. But the first rule still echoed in her head. Respect. Nothing is free. If you leave a mark, you make it right. Running would be leaving a mark. Abandoning what had been offered. Breaking something she hadn’t even tried to hold. She shut the door. Later, she raided the fridge, slicing bread thinner than she needed, as though portioning meant control. The knife in her hand trembled, not from hunger but from memory. When she finished, she wiped the counter without being told. Hours stretched. The cat curled against her ribs when she finally lay down. Its purr was too steady to ignore. Her body betrayed her again, sleep dragging her down into the silence she hadn’t earned. In the dream, she wasn’t running. She was waiting at an open door. Waiting for him to come back through it.
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