There’s a girl lying sideways on her bed, phone wedged between her shoulder and cheek, screen dimmed so it doesn’t light up the whole room.
She scrolls past an old chat thread, past a draft she never sent, past a meme she laughed at three days ago and pretended didn’t sting.
Her brain keeps doing the same loop:
What was I to him, really?
What is this thing I’m in now?
What happens if I ask for more?
What happens if I shut it down?
What if this is the last chance I get at something that feels like this?
What if it’s just another game I’m losing slowly?
She types: “Hey, can I ask you something about us?”
Stares at it. Deletes it.
Types: “Nvm, I’m being dramatic lol”
Deletes that too.
She opens a tiny post instead. Eight words, four lines.
What was, what is… what now?
She doesn’t suddenly get wiser. She doesn’t draft the perfect boundary. She doesn’t walk away.
She just, for the first time all day, admits to herself that “what now?” is a separate question from “what if?”
And even if she still does nothing tonight, something in her has quietly shifted from:
“I’m trapped in all these timelines,”
to:
“At some point, I’m going to have to pick one.”
Cycle I · “The Hidden Voice” · 08
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