Page 162 of When the Storm Breaks
I’m just stuck.
And I know I need to do something—anything—to break the cycle.
Realizing I’m running out of daylight, I force myself upright.I need air. I need movement. At least thirty minutes outside, where my thoughts can breathe without suffocating me.
It’s a rule I’ve given myself:
If I’m in public, I won’t break down. I won’t collapse. I won’t scream.
And if I don’t walk—
I’m not allowed to feel it.
The air outside is crisp—cool enough to wake me up a little—but my steps are sluggish. Each one is intentional. A push forward when everything inside me wants to stand still.
As I move down familiar streets, my eyes wander, tracing the houses that haven’t changed in years.
It’s strange, how everything stays the same even when you don’t.
I see it in flashes—the past overlaying the present like a memory projected on glass.
My younger self, running barefoot across front yards. Knocking on neighbors’ doors. Asking if they could play.
Back then, the tears only came when the day ended. When streetlights flickered on and we had to go home.
I guess that’s what happened with Haiyden.
The tears came. And I had to go home.
By the time I loop back around, my skin is damp with sweat. Maybe I picked up speed without realizing it.
Or maybe I’m just carrying too much—and it’s leaking out any way it can.
Either way, I feel raw. Scraped empty, like I’m walking around inside the shell of myself.
I push open the front door, already thinking about ashower—
But the smell in the air stops me cold.
My stomach pangs—not from hunger, but from recognition.
Not just any soup. My mom’s. The kind she used to make when I was little. On sick days. On sad days.
She’s been making a lot of my favorites lately. I’ve noticed, even if I haven’t said anything.
Some nights, it’s hard to get the food down. Hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.
But this? This is too much.
It feels like acknowledgement.
Like she sees me. Like she knows that I’m not okay. That I need comfort in a way no one else can give me.
I step into the kitchen slowly, my feet quiet against the tile.
My mom stands at the stove, dropping clumps of batter into a steaming pot. The sight of it breaks something in me.
This was the meal I needed. The night I left. The night Jules died. The night Haiyden disappeared.
