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My legs carry me to my desk before I’ve even decided to move. I pull a square of paper from the drawer, smooth it flat beneath my palm and grab a pen.

Happy.

I fold the paper slowly, following the creases until the star begins to take shape. By the time I’m done, the word has disappeared inside it.

I push my window open, the cold air brushing my skin, and for a second I hold the star between my fingers. Then I let it go, the wind catching it, carrying it farther away. I watch until it becomes impossible to tell where the paper ends and the stars begin.

“Carry it to her, she’s still waiting at the edge of the cliff,” I whisper to no one. “She needs to know I’m still hoping, I’m still making wishes for her.”

24

Mireya

Play - Skinny Love by Bon Jover

Safespace

Come on Skinny Love, just last the year…

The rooftop is just as I left it this morning. Lonely and cold, but weirdly enough, it’s still safe. The MP3 player’s stickers are half-peeled, aluminum warm from a hundred palms and the sound is not the best.

“Rooftop” is the playlist name for tonight. It’s making me nostalgic for no reason.

Milo is asleep, and I wish I could follow him, but I can’t. My eyes burn with tiredness that sleep should fix but never does because it never comes. My body wants rest, craves it even, but the idea of lying in that house, those walls, those sounds, the way the floorboards remember too much about the screams and the bruises, it all makes my chest tighten.

Sleep feels dangerous here, like letting my guard down in enemy territory. So I’m here instead.

The rooftop is uncomfortable, but it’s better because here, nothing up can sneak up on me, I can see every edge, every shadow and every house in the neighborhood still asleep.

I hate that house. I hate that it still has power over me. The memory is so vivid in my head. Mom is gone, and Dad never grieved her. Not really. He just got… louder, and angrier.

I learned quickly that grief wasn’t allowed, not mine, not his, not anyone’s. So I carried it all.

Two people’s sorrow, two people’s anger, two people’s fear, wrapped into one body that was too small to hold it. That’s when I learned to be mother and sister, shield and listener, bodyguard and nurse, while barely remembering what it meant to be myself.

But I still draw this house, like it actually would help reshape it into something harmless, not even for me, it’s for Milo.

I notice the scars on my arms because they’re familiar, and because one of them is new. A small cut for a great misery, it’s fair right?

Even if it’s been years and I can’t get rid of it. It scares me a little how natural it feels. How my hands still remember what to do even now, when things are calmer than they used to be.

It did help once. That’s the part no one likes to admit. When everything was unbearable, when I was holding Milo, swallowing dad’s rage, carrying mom’s absence, it gave me some stupid control over the pain, a release. A way to make the noise stop for a second.

When I started doing it all the time, it felt like survival. Now it feels different. Like an addiction I never signed up for, something that waits quietly for moments of exhaustion and slips back in when I’m too tired to fight it. I hate that a part of me still reaches for it. I hate that calm can come from something that also hurts me.

I’m still struggling. I used to struggle more. But at least I’m here drawing instead of doing more. It’s a small step, but it’s all I can do.

Healing doesn’t move in straight lines. It’s jagged, like the scars etched on my own skin. And that’s okay for someone who had to grow up by bleeding quietly.

Calm down, Rey. Breathe.

I keep drawing slowly, and humming the song like I’m actually in my own world.

Who will love you… who will fight …

Then, a soft weight presses against my legs. I glance down and see that Blue has slunk onto my lap, tail curling around my knees, purring gently. Maybe he knows that I’m actually not feeling the best being here. I stroked his fur, slow, almost absentmindedly, feeling the vibration of the purr through my hands.

“It’s cold here. You should go back in, Blue,” I murmur, though the warmth in my chest is spreading just from this little living thing trusting me. I pause my drawing, let the pencil rest, and focus on the small presence he offers. I keep humming along with the song without realizing it.