The question stalked her into the morning.
Not spoken.
Not written.
But present—like a quiet weight behind her thoughts.
What if I've wasted years?
Alaine stared at the ceiling for quite a while after she woke up, as if expecting the answer to appear there.
It didn’t.
But something had changed.
She wasn’t rushing to escape the silence anymore.
That realization made her uneasy.
Because silence used to feel like something she needed to fix.
Now it felt like something she was beginning to understand.
***
She got ready slowly.
No silencing the silence with loud music.
No rushing.
Just quiet movements in a room that felt too honest without noise covering it.
Even her reflection seemed different today.
Not because she had changed physically.
But because she was seeing herself longer than usual.
Not looking away so quickly.
***
At work, everything functioned normally.
Phones ringing.
Keyboards clacking.
Conversations floating through the office like background noise.
But Alaine felt slightly outside of it all now.
Not disconnected completely.
Just… observant.
Like she was noticing things she had never paused long enough to see before.
The way people smiled, despite being clearly exhausted.
The way laughter somehow ended too quickly.
The way everyone seemed to be moving fast… but not necessarily toward anything meaningful.
Like they were all rushing toward an invisible goal.
A strange thought entered her mind.
Are we all just… coping differently?
She blinked at...