No destination. No plan. Just movement, like if I kept going the thoughts wouldn’t catch me.
Paris blurred past in pieces — a bridge, a bakery, a woman arguing on the phone, someone laughing too loudly outside a bar. Life happening without me, effortlessly, while I carried my own around like a weight I couldn’t set down.
You are disappearing.
Trying isn’t deciding.
Do you let people take care of you?
Stop hiding.
I realized, suddenly and painfully, that I had built an entire identity around being needed but never actually known.
Useful. Reliable. Capable.
Never chosen.
Never choosing.
Just… avoiding.
I sat on the edge of a fountain for a while and stared at my phone.
No calendar.
No email.
No productivity.
Just a name in my messages that I had finally allowed to exist.
Kiara.
I typed.
Deleted.
Typed again.
Stared at it like it might judge me.
Then, because I was tired of being clever and empty, I wrote:
I want to cash in that rain check. Are you around?
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Then:
Her:
Yes. I am. Do you want my address?
My chest tightened.
Me:
Yes.
