that look, that little flicker in their eye, usually it would clamp down on my chest, a quick, familiar fist of recognition for all the broken bits i used to carry so visibly, but it didn't this time, just this weird kind of stretch through my ribs, like something inside had finally learned to expand instead of contract into itself, and even the hum from the machines below in the laundromat felt like a comforting vibration against the soles of my feet instead of a dull thrumming ache in my skull from trying too hard to block it out and pretend i wasn't here, pretending i wasn't ME anymore, because the pretending used to take so much energy you know, it just drained everything, leaving that hollowed-out space where my own thoughts used to be, the one i used to hate but now i'm just...furnishing it slowly, deliberately, not forgetting the empty boxes in the corner of this studio that still need unpacking but knowing they don't hold the same kind of dread, not anymore.