Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
-Thalia-
The apartment suffocates me in an unusual stillness and an eerie calm.
There’s no comforting sound of Xander bustling around, brewing his morning coffee.
No gentle murmur of his voice filling the space with warmth.
Just me and the quiet. He’s at his place today, trying to catch up on laundry, bills, and all those mundane tasks that can stack up when you practically live in someone else’s home.
Before he left, he pressed a tender kiss to my forehead, his eyes searching mine for assurance. “You’ll be okay?” he asked softly. I nodded, managing a weak smile even though uncertainty gnawed at me from the inside.
The moment the door closed, I stood in the middle of the apartment, listening to the echo of his departure fade.
It’s ridiculous how final silence can sound, like an aftershock in my bones.
Every instinct screams to fill the space—to talk, to play music, to call someone—but I force myself to stand still. To listen.
The quiet isn’t dangerous anymore; it’s just quiet. Still, it takes a few minutes before I believe that.
I grab the notebook I keep tucked in the drawer by the couch. For months, journaling was just something I thought might help, and I treated it like a task, mechanical and obligatory. But today, the pen feels like an extension of my breath.
I write down the date, noticing how my handwriting looks steadier than it did weeks ago.
Today, I was alone… and I lived through the quiet.
The words aren’t poetic or profound, but they feel revolutionary.
I write about how the silence pressed against my ribs like a weight, but how instead of running from it, I held firm.
I write about the moment the panic eased, how my chest expanded with breath again, how the stillness became space instead of suffocation.
And then I write two tiny words that feel like a thunderclap inside me.
I stayed.
I underline it twice.
I don’t need perfection; I just need proof.
And the ink on the page is proof that today, even if no one else saw it, I chose to remain.
At first, I find myself pacing the confines of the apartment, my footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor as if the walls are closing in around me.
The silence is thick, a palpable weight that seems to wrap around my chest, making it hard to breathe.
I glance at my phone, half-considering calling Xander, the impulse flickering like a flame.
Almost.
I shake my head, willing myself to push through this. I turn to my playlist, selecting something soft and soothing, gentle melodies that play like whispers, reminding me that the world outside continues its rhythm.
The first notes tremble through the air, hesitant, like they’re unsure they belong here.
The sound moves around me, curling along the edges of my anxiety until it begins to soften.
I let the rhythm dictate my breath, syncing the two until they move in unison.
I remember something my therapist said. ‘Your body learned survival. Now teach it peace.’
At the time, I rolled my eyes at the imagery. Peace wasn’t something I could teach. Peace was something I’d lost. But today, as the song plays, I feel her words crawl back through the fog.
I stand barefoot, pressing my toes into the grain of the wood, feeling the texture against my skin. I close my eyes and sway, letting the music rock me gently. Not dancing, just existing. I place one hand over my heart and count the beats beneath my palm.
Steady.
Present.
Mine.
Damian used to tell me that fear would always own me. That my body would always remember him.
But right now, my body remembers something else.
Warmth.
Music.
Safety.
Peace wasn’t something stolen. It was something waiting.
It’s strange, finding calm in something so simple, but maybe healing is just a collection of small, ordinary mercies.
With a deep breath, I move to the kitchen, forcing myself to prepare breakfast. I slice bread for toast, crack eggs into a pan, and pour water for coffee while the aromas start to weave through the air.
It’s a simple meal, nothing extravagant, but I remind myself that eating is a choice I can make.
No one can take that from me, a small act of autonomy in the face of everything else that feels uncontrollable.
I sit at the small kitchen table, the sunlight streaming through the window illuminating the mundane task, yet it feels strangely surreal, as if I’ve slipped into someone else’s reality.
For a while, I watch the light shift across the surface of my coffee mug, inching from gold to amber. The dust motes floating in the air look almost holy. I think about how, months ago, mornings like this used to crush me—the stillness, the light, the reminder that the world kept spinning.
The morning drifts away in small increments. I fold a fresh load of laundry, carefully smoothing out each piece of clothing, trying to find comfort in the repetitive motion. I vacuum the rug, watching as the tiny particles vanish, swept away with each pass.
Eventually, I pick up the book that has sat on my bedside table for far too long, diving into its pages and losing myself in the story for three chapters.
Reading feels like remembering how to breathe underwater.
At first, every word burns, every paragraph stretches my focus too thin.
But then, slowly, the characters take shape, and the world beyond these pages dissolves.
I can exist here without needing to survive anything.
It feels almost illicit to be safe inside a story.
The normalcy feels foreign, a stark contrast to the storm raging in my mind, but this fleeting sense of peace doesn’t last.
As afternoon creeps in, shadows cast long and dark across the living room, reminding me that tranquility is often an illusion.
The silence sharpens, and memories I’d rather forget begin to flood back with relentless intensity.
Damian’s face flashes in my mind, his voice echoing in the recesses of my memory, a bitter reminder of past entrapment.
The familiar grip of panic tightens around my chest, my hands trembling uncontrollably as I battle the rising tide of fear. The room doesn’t change, but I do.
My body reacts before my brain catches up. My throat tightens as if invisible hands have wrapped around it. My vision tunnels, narrowing until the edges blur. I swear I can smell cologne, but not Xander’s warm, woodsy scent. His. Cheap. Bitter. Like chemicals and arrogance.
My heart sprints, trying to outrun a memory my body has already chased down.
My therapist calls this a ‘trauma echo’. A ghost of a moment that convinces your body it’s happening again.
I whisper to myself, “This is not then.”
My voice trembles, but I say it again. “This is not then.”
My brain is slower than my body, but eventually, it listens.
My mind betrays me, replaying echoes that don’t belong to this room. I can smell him, hear him, even though I know Damian isn’t here.
“He’s gone.” I repeat this again and again until the words grow teeth, until they bite back the fear. I’ve learned that sometimes survival sounds like repetition. Like reminding yourself what’s true until your body believes it.
Desperate for some grounding, I reach for the tools my therapist taught me.
I open the freezer, pulling out a handful of ice, letting the chilling sting anchor me to the present.
I can feel the cold biting against my skin, a jolting reminder that I am here now.
I close my eyes, taking deep breaths, counting each one as they flow in and out.
I focus on my surroundings, naming five things I can see: a framed photograph on the wall, the soft texture of the couch beneath me, a plant standing resolutely in the corner, the light filtering through the curtains, and the clock ticking steadily in the background.
Slowly, the panic begins to recede, my breath steadies, and I find my way back to myself.
My phone buzzes from across the room, Isla’s name lighting up the screen. I stare at it, frozen. I want to answer. I want to tell her I’m okay, that I pulled myself back from the edge alone. But this strange sense of shame coils in my stomach.
She’s always been the strong one. The steady one. The friend who brings fire to every room.
I used to think being strong meant pretending I didn’t need anyone. But now I know the truth: strength is choosing yourself even when fear screams louder.
The call stops.
A text appears.
Isla
Just checking in. No pressure.
I swallow hard, the sting of tears rising.
Thalia
Thank you.
Not an explanation.
Not a performance.
Just thanks.
And that feels like enough.
When it passes, I feel emptied out, like the tide has gone out and left everything bare. My reflection in the mirror across the room looks different—eyes red and chest heaving—but there’s something new there too. Strength. The kind you earn by clawing your way back from the edge.
By the time I collapse onto the couch, my heart still races but starts to find a steadier rhythm. Exhaustion settles over me like a comforting blanket, and I realize something significant—I managed that. Alone. Not flawlessly, and certainly not without pain, but I found a way through the storm.
Later, when Xander texts me, telling me he misses me and asking if I want him to come round, I almost don’t reply, afraid that answering will ruin the fragile independence I just built. But his text doesn’t feel like an anchor; it feels like sunlight sneaking in through the blinds.
So, I type back. My fingers tremble, not from fear this time, but from something close to pride. A smile spreads across my face.
Thalia
Yes. But I’m okay.
And for the first time in a long while, it feels genuinely true.
The therapist greets me with a warm smile as I sink into the plush chair across from her. Her pen hovers above her notepad, waiting for my words. “How have you been since we last spoke?”
I can’t help the little grin that tugs at my mouth. “Good. Actually… really good.”
I notice her brow arch gently in curiosity. “Tell me about that.”
Taking a steadying breath, I fiddle with the soft sleeve of my sweater, feeling its warmth against my skin. “Xander spent the day at his house yesterday. Which meant I was at home alone.”
“Alone,” she echoes softly. “And how did that feel?”
“Scary at first.” My laugh is a bit shaky, breaking the silence.
“The apartment was so quiet. I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin. But I didn’t call him.
I didn’t run. I turned on music, letting the rhythm fill the empty spaces.
I ate a leisurely breakfast, taking my time with each bite.
I even curled up with a book and lost myself in the story for a while. ”
“And when it wasn’t easy?”
Talking about progress is scarier than talking about pain.
When I don't answer, she continues. “Thalia… why does your progress scare you?”
I pick at a loose string on my sweater. “Because if I say I’m doing better, and then I break again… I’ll disappoint everyone.”
“Progress isn’t a straight line. And it’s not a debt you owe. You’re afraid that healing means forgetting what happened, but healing doesn’t erase your past; it simply means it doesn’t drive you anymore.”
I don’t argue. I just listen.
Pain is predictable—it has an order, a rhythm I’ve learned to survive. Joy, though, feels volatile, like it could vanish if I look at it too directly. But as I sit across from her, I realize how good it feels to name something beautiful and not apologize for it.
My smile falters at the memory. “The panic still came crashing in. I froze up for a while, overwhelmed by the silence, and thought, ‘This is it. I can’t do this.’ But then I remembered what you told me.
I grabbed an ice cube from the freezer and counted my breaths slowly.
I named five things I could see around me.
And… it worked.” Suddenly, the tears well up, spilling over my lashes. “I did it. By myself.”
“Thalia, that’s an incredible step. You showed yourself that you can survive the silence; you have the tools inside you now.”
I nod, wiping my eyes, feeling a flicker of pride warming my chest. “Xander came by in the evening, and it felt nice having him here, but it wasn’t because I needed him to stop the panic. It was because I wanted him there.”
“And that,” she emphasizes, “is the difference. Needing someone to regulate you isn’t the same as choosing to share your progress with them. What you did yesterday—that’s resilience. That’s growth.”
Her words wrap around me like a soft blanket on a chilly night. For so long, I believed comfort was something I hadn’t earned. Now I let it in, let it settle over my shoulders and seep into the cracks. Healing doesn’t erase the past; it just stops it from owning every tomorrow.
When I return home, I find Xander stretched out comfortably on the couch, one arm draped lazily over the backrest, his hair tousled as if he’s been running his hands through it all day.
He glances up when I enter, and that easy smile breaks across his face, the kind that always loosens the tension in my chest.
“How was it?” he asks. I drop my bag onto the floor and sit beside him.
“Good. Really good.”
He tilts his head, studying me with an intensity that suggests he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Tell me.”
I take a deep breath, gathering my thoughts as the words spill out faster than I anticipate. “I shared with her about being alone yesterday. How I managed to get through it.”
His brows lift with interest. “You did more than just get through it.” His hand brushes against mine. “You handled it.”
“And it was only possible because you trusted me to try. You didn’t hover or push me to call you. You let me figure it out on my own. And I did. I actually did.”
His throat works as he swallows something heavy. Then he pulls me against him, wrapping his arms tightly around me. “Thalia, I’ll always trust you. You’re stronger than you think.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I manage a laugh through the emotion. “I’m starting to believe that.”
We linger in this embrace for a long time, basking in the comfort of shared silence, breathing the same air.
The warmth of his chest under my cheek, the rhythm of his breathing, and the faint scent of his soap all weave together into a moment I want to keep.
It’s not passion, not survival, just stillness.
The kind that used to terrify me because it left me alone with my thoughts.
But tonight, silence feels like safety. I can feel his heartbeat steady against my ear, and in this moment, it’s as if I’m not just surviving alongside him—I’m building something meaningful. Safe.
Chosen.
Wanted.