On the bus ride home, Lunara slid into the seat beside me without asking.
She handed me one side of her earphones. The song was soft and familiar. I leaned my head against the window and let the rhythm carry the day out of my chest.
Across the aisle, Sera was already mid-argument.
"I'm telling you, that ending was lazy," she said, flipping through her book. "You cannot just forgive someone like that."
"It's fiction," Miren replied.
"That doesn't mean it has to be stupid."
Lunara huffed quietly but kept the earphone in.
For a few minutes, the chair loosened its grip on me.
When the bus slowed, she nudged my knee.
"You okay?"
I nodded.
It felt easier than answering.
⸻
When I got home, the house was quiet.
My mother's handbag was on the counter.
She was already back.
I dropped my bag by the door and went straight to the kitchen.
"What are we making?" I asked.
She glanced at me briefly.
"Rice," she said. "And stew."
"I'll wash the vegetables," I offered.
She didn't say yes.
She didn't say no.
I started anyway.
Water ran. Plates shifted. The rhythm of preparing dinner settled into something almost normal.
Aisling came in a few minutes later, talking before she even put her bag down.
"Hi Cala, hmm the kitchen already smells good. Amelia's mum was hyping you today."
My mother glanced up. "Hyping me?"
"Yes. She said you looked very corporate. I think she's stealing your jacket idea."
My mother smiled despite herself and adjusted the sleeve.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Amelia was like, 'My mum could never.'"
I kept washing.
"You saw Amelia's mum?" I asked, like it had just occurred to me.
"Yes," my mother said. "Briefly."
She moved to the sink, rinsed her hands, then began setting plates on the table.
Aisling started talking about something else. Liam asked for water. Jace dropped his fork.
The evening continued.
Steady. Ordered. Normal.
And I understood that whatever the meeting had meant to me, it had not carried the same weight for her.
Not because she had forgotten.
Not because she did not care.
Just because it had not felt urgent.
I dried my hands and reached for the next plate.
It wasn't a big deal.
I was old enough to understand.
Dinner moved the way it always did. Plates passed. Jace talked too loudly. Liam corrected him without looking up. Aisling laughed at something on her phone and tried to show Mum a picture mid-bite.
No one asked about my meeting.
I mean, why would they?
If it had mattered, it would have come up.
I focused on my plate. On chewing slowly. On nodding at the right moments. On being present in a way that required nothing extra.
After we cleared the table, I washed the dishes without being told.
My mother dried them beside me.
Our elbows almost touched once. She shifted slightly. Not away. Just enough.
"Don't leave the sponge in the sink," she said.
"I won't."
We worked in silence.
It felt almost peaceful.
Later, in my room, I didn't turn the lights on immediately. The hallway glow was enough. I sat on the edge of my bed and listened to the house settle.
A door closed. The television volume lowered. Water ran somewhere distant.
I reached for the drawer without thinking.
The notebook was where I had left it.
For a second, I just held it.
I told myself I wasn't going to make it into something bigger than it was.
It was just a book.
Still, my chest tightened.
After that year, everything felt tighter.
Smaller mistakes got bigger reactions.
Silences lasted longer.
I opened to a blank page.
The pen hovered.
I didn't try to write something meaningful.
I wrote something small.
Just enough to feel like I had said something somewhere.
Then I closed it.
Leaving it open felt like asking for something back.
I slid it into the drawer and lay down without turning the light on.
It wasn't a big deal.
I was mature enough to know that.