she said my name, and for a beat, I stood there, a strange, hollow space opening up where I should have felt… something, like my brain was trying to match the sound to a face that wasn’t quite mine anymore, just a ghost of the person she might remember. the absence of a response, of a clear feeling, was its own kind of answer, a deeper truth than any word could have been, leaving a faint ache in the hollows of my collarbone, a place where all the bracing used to live.