For a long time, I thought if I didn’t say it out loud, it wasn’t real.
**For a long time, I thought if I didn’t say it out loud, it wasn’t real.**
The scent of rain-soaked earth always brought me back to that Tuesday. Not the fresh, cleansing scent, but the deep, almost metallic tang that saturates everything after a hard downpour. It clung to my sweater, to the worn armrests of the park bench, even seemed to seep from the rough bark of the oak tree above.
I was sitting there, watching the last drips fall from the leaves, each drop hitting the wet grass with a tiny, indistinguishable sound. My hands were clasped in my lap, knuckles white. They felt cold, even though the air was mild.
Everything in my life was, on the surface, fine. The job was stable, my rent was paid, I had friends who invited me to things. But inside, it felt like a silent, slow-motion crumbling, like watching a sandcastle dissolve from within.
I’d been running on fumes for months, telling myself that this feeling, this profound, exhausting emptiness, was just a phase. That if I just kept moving, kept pushing, it would eventually lift. But it hadn't.
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This story is part of the K-Will Stories archive — an anonymised, content-warned, candle-react grief-and-resilience collection. Reading: 5 min · Theme: confession-not-okay · Mood: heavy.
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