Page 7 of Let Me In

I’m just past thirty and have been living with my parents for the last five years. At first, it was supposed to be temporary. Just to get on my feet, find a decent job that paid enough to move out. I thought that would be the turning point. But somewhere in the middle of trying to push forward, I realized I was dragging something behind me.

I decided to go back and finish what I’d left undone. The thing that’s haunted me for years. My degree.

English literature. Not the most useful, but God, it fulfilled me.

I abandoned it when things first fell apart, but it’s nearly finished now. Finally. But the months blurred into years. Rent kept going up. My savings never stretched far enough. One thing after another. A crisis. A delay. A reason to stay just a little longer.

It never quite worked out.

So I stayed.

Not because I wanted to.

Because I had nowhere else to go.

And I’m still trying to do something that looks like moving forward.

I climb the stairs without speaking. My hand closes around the bedroom doorknob like it’s the only thing still holding me up. Like if I let go, I’ll fall through the floor.

Luca and Cleo are waiting.

Luca bounces forward first, his long shepherd tail wagging hard enough to shake his whole body. He makes this little huffing noise when he’s happy, like he’s trying to talk. Cleo follows slower, like she’s reading the tremble in my hands before I even open the door. A little black and white basket of nerves.

I shut the door. Twist the lock.

Lower myself to the floor.

Cleo presses her head against my chest. Luca curls into the space between my knees. My fingers twist into fur, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. One of those deep, broken things that lives in your chest when you’re always bracing for the next hit.

And sometimes, the worst bruises don’t leave marks at all.

“You guys don’t hurt like humans do,” I whisper. “You just stay.”

Cleo’s tail thumps once. Luca licks my hand.

I stay like that until the shaking in my limbs settles. Until my shoulders don’t feel like they’re about to crack under the weight of being invisible and too visible all at once.

Then I reach for my notebook. The leather is cool beneath my fingers, the corners softened by time and use. The page underneath has a slight tooth to it, steadying me with its quiet resistance—firm, textured, something real to anchor me when the rest of the world feels like too much.

The page is mostly blank. A half-written scene. A world I meant to build. One where the girls like me get chosen. Wherethe men don’t laugh or leave. Where kindness isn’t something you flinch from.

I don’t write.

I just rest my hand on the paper. Feel the coolness of it. The weight.

He said I could keep doing that.

Like I wasn’t a burden.

And for the first time in a long while… I want to believe it might be true.

I close my eyes.

And picture the ridge.

The trees.

The stillness of his voice.

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