Page 182 of Sage Haven
His war with something he didn’t talk about, something that lived in his bones and weighed him down in silence.
I wondered what it was.
What he carried.
What he thought he had to carry alone.
Was it some boss? His family? Or something deeper and older, clawing at the edges of his soul?
I didn’t know.
But I wanted to.
I wanted to know him.
Every fracture. Every fault line.
I wanted to trace his scars with my hands and tell him he was still beautiful.
Still whole.
And maybe—in finding him, I was finding myself, too.
For so long, I had existed in the shadows of my own life.
A ghost walking through the ruins of what had once been.
But now, it felt different.
The emptiness wasn’t a grave.
It was a beginning.
And I knew exactly where I needed to be.
I made my way toward the library, the sanctuary that had become something like holy ground to me.
Where the world quieted.
Where my mind could breathe.
Where I started to remember who I was before I was broken.
As I approached the heavy wooden doors, my fingertips brushed over the smooth grain, and a faint, wistful smile curved my lips.
This was where the healing had begun.
The music that once shattered me was now piecing me back together.
Every note a stitch.
Every lyric a thread pulling me tighter into something stronger.
Every melody telling me it was okay to feel again.
And here, in this room, I reclaimed pieces of myself I thought had been lost forever.
No longer broken.
