Journal Entry — Undated
(Somewhere between the hallway and forgetting)

I didn’t cry.

I thought I would. Thought I should. But when it happened—when the door stayed closed, when the silence became the answer—I just stood there. And listened.

He didn’t come back.

Not through the Veil. Not through the door. Not through the way his voice used to linger in rooms long after he left them.

I thought I would shatter.

But instead, I made tea.
I swept the floor.
I folded the laundry that still smelled like him.

And then I folded myself.

Not out of strength. Not really. But because I didn’t know how to fall apart quietly. And I knew the house would echo if I screamed.

I went to the mirror and didn’t look.
I passed the study and didn’t stop.
I heard the stairs creak and didn’t follow.

If he’s gone, I told myself, then he doesn’t get to haunt me.

(But he does. He always did.)

There’s a thread tied around my ribs. Still.
It pulls when the wind gets cold.
When the ink in his book shifts by itself.
When I braid my hair and realize my hands are shaking for no reason at all.

They say grief makes ghosts.

But I think grief just makes girls like me —

— M. V.