"Maybe healing isn't loud.
Maybe it's choosing not to text them back.
Maybe it's leaving a table where you're always the punchline."
————————————————————
The next few days passed in a strange, floaty way.
Not numb.
But not exactly alive either.
Like she was underwater, watching her life through glass.
Aira went to class. Sat beside Mae. Laughed at Ray's quiet, odd little jokes that always came a few beats too late.
But then she'd come home, stare at the ceiling, and her chest would curl tight again. A rubber band that never snapped. A knot that never untied.
She wasn't okay.
But she also wasn't apologizing for that anymore.
That weekend, she went to a quiet student-run mental health event—a safe space circle Mae had told her about. No pressure to speak. No pressure to be anything.
Just show up.
The room was simple. Pillows on the floor. Warm lighting. A tray of free tea bags with a sign that read:
Take what comforts you. Leave what you don't.
Aira sat in the back. Silent. Watching.
Someone spoke about anxiety that wrapped around their throat like a hand.
Someone else cried softly as they explained what it meant to "ghost yourself" before anyone else could.
No one laughed. No one minimized.
And for the first time in what felt like years, Aira didn't feel weird. Or too much. Or broken.
She just felt… there.
When the circle ended, she stayed back. One of the volunteers offered her a gentle smile.
"You don't have to speak if you're not ready," they said. "You just being here is a kind of courage."
Aira blinked. Tears burned, sudden and sharp.
She wanted to say thank you.
She wanted to say: No one's ever called it courage before.
But all she managed was a small, shaking nod.
Later that night, her phone buzzed.
A message.
From Hana.
[ HANA: ]
just so you know, people are talking.
it's sad how you're making yourself look like a victim lol.
The words hit hard.
But they didn't destroy her.
Not like before.
Instead, Aira put her phone down, face-up. Let it ring. Let it burn.
She picked up her pen.
Wrote like she hadn't in weeks.
"I don't need to defend myself anymore.
Let them talk. Let them twist it.
I know what it felt like to be invisible in the middle of a crowd.
And I'm not going back there."
"The most dangerous part of healing is when you start to believe you deserve it.
Because that's when you start to walk away.
And they don't like that."
She didn't reply to Hana.
She didn't even block her.
She just… let go.
And that was a kind of ending.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a soft, steady goodbye.