The air in the car smells like stale regrets and cheap air freshener, a combination that’s surprisingly resilient. I can feel the upholstery prickling my bare arms through the thin fabric of my shirt. It’s a low-grade hum of discomfort, like a forgotten toothache. I found a parking lot where nobody knocked on the window, a small victory that feels ridiculously large, but the relief is layered with a slick coating of something else, something like shame. Like I’ve tricked the world into letting me exist, just for a few hours. And then there's the other thing, the thing that makes my throat tight, the pure, clean terror that a moment like this, a moment of just not being bothered, is the absolute peak. That the best I can hope for is just a temporary reprieve from the world’s attention, a brief, stolen silence.