And now the water was coming.
"I feel myself torrent," I said again. This time, I didn't whisper. And this time, it wasn't a confession.
On the seventh day, the torrent slowed. Not stopped—never that. But slowed enough for me to see the shape of what had been underneath all along. Not a wreck. Not a ruin. i feel myself torrent
"I feel myself torrent," I whispered into the collar of my jacket.
By Tuesday, I couldn’t sit still. My leg bounced under my desk. My pen skated across paper without my permission, drawing the face of a boy I’d loved and lost to silence, not death. By Thursday, I was crying in the shower without sadness. Laughing in the grocery store without joy. Everything was leaking. Everything was flowing. And now the water was coming
It was a fact. Like gravity. Like rain. Like the river that would keep running long after I was gone, and the one that would keep running inside me until I wasn't.
The hardest part wasn't the sadness. It was the rage. A hot, stupid, beautiful rage at every person who’d told me to calm down. At every teacher who’d said "too sensitive." At every version of myself who’d smiled and nodded and drowned a little more. And this time, it wasn't a confession
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. My hair was a nest. My eyes were red. But for the first time in years, I recognized the person looking back. Not because she was calm. Because she was moving.