the taste of that starfruit, perfectly ripe, it wasn't just sweet on my tongue, it was a sudden, almost jarring realization, a full-body recognition that rippled down through my jaw, a complete softening in places i didn't even know were clenched until they weren't anymore, and that feeling, that deep surrender, it just kept going, spreading through the base of my throat, where for so long i carried a kind of constant, low thrum of almost-panic, a readiness for the NEXT thing to go wrong, a perpetual expectation of something breaking, and to feel that particular part of me now, just open, without any resistance, it’s like a memory of a phantom ache, a ghost of a tension that used to tie my whole spine in knots, but now it’s just… free, completely uncoiled, and the only vibration left is that deep hum, not just behind my earlobes but all the way down into my hips when i pivot on the board, like every single cell finally remembered its original instructions for how to just BE here, and my hands, usually so restless, just feel like they belong, completely, holding nothing but the warmth of the sun on my skin and the faint stickiness of the fruit, this IS the one, every single particle of it, and Cosmo launches himself into the blue expanse every single like he's trying to outrun all of yesterday's shadows with pure, frantic joy, a creature of boundless, unapologetic glee, and watching him, it's just a feeling of YES, that's exactly it.