That night, sleep eluded me. I lay in the darkness, the weight of betrayal pressing down, feeling like an anchor tethered to my chest. My mind was a storm of thoughts, swirling and crashing, yet I remained silent. I refused to give them the screams, the tears, the satisfaction of my brokenness. Instead, I embraced the quiet and let it fill me, hardening into resolve.
The house was still, save for the occasional creak of the settling wood. Outside, crickets droned on, oblivious to the tempest inside. I shifted, staring at the ceiling, mapping out constellations of revenge and justice in the shadows above. As the hours ticked by, the silence morphed from a shield into a weapon.
