In the quiet

She gets up each morning, her limbs heavy, her body reluctant to follow the commands of her mind. She moves through the motions because that’s what she’s supposed to do. Get up, eat, go through the day, and pretend like everything is fine. It’s a mask she wears so well that even she sometimes forgets it’s there. She smiles when she’s supposed to, answers when asked, and shuts out the parts of herself that are too broken to show. The rest of the world doesn’t need to know that she’s not okay. No one would understand anyway. Her friends, if she can even call them that, don’t ask about her anymore. They don’t notice the tiredness in her voice, the hollowness in her words. They’re too wrapped up in their own dramas, their own lives. And maybe she doesn’t blame them. Maybe it’s easier to pretend she’s fine. Maybe they wouldn’t get it even if she did speak up. Maybe no one would ever get it. In the quiet moments, when no one’s looking, when her mind is free to wander, the loneliness seeps in. It’s louder than anything else, louder than the ache in her body, louder than the silence that fills the space between her and her parents. She wonders if she’ll ever find someone who sees her, really sees her, beyond the shell she’s built around herself. Someone who’ll listen to her unspoken words, who’ll catch the subtle cracks in her smile and offer more than empty reassurances. She knows that’s just a fantasy. She knows because she’s been let down too many times to hope for anything else. Hope has a way of turning into disappointment, and disappointment has a way of hardening the heart. She learned that lesson early, and it sticks with her now, every day.