Page 89 of Hollowed

And this?—

This was forgetting.

I stood in the sun until my skin itched.

I watched a woman hang laundry. Her skirt danced in the wind.

She didn’t see me.

No one did.

And maybe that was worse than being rejected.

Because in that chapel, every gasp was holy.

Every moan, memorized.

Every bruise, remembered.

But here?

Here, I was just a girl with a quiet mouth and no vow to hold it open.

I touched the place between my legs.

Found only absence.

Closed my eyes.

Whispered his name.

The wind didn’t carry it.

Because he wasn’t here to hear it.

And the silence?

It wasn’t sacred anymore.

It wasempty.

I forgot what day it was.

Not because I lost track.

Because time had stopped mattering the moment I left his hands.

I touched the ribbon more often than I meant to.

I slept with it beneath my pillow.

Folded across my chest like a prayer that refused to die.

I didn’t speak his name aloud.

Because it tasted too much like a vow I had broken.

The woman left food.

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