Chapter 188: You Were Born
A memory. But not a nightmare. Not a tear ripped through memory. Not a scream rising from the depth of the throat. Not a scene of fleeing, of fear, of slamming doors in panic.
No. Just a moment. One of those that seems insignificant at the time, but leaves a strange imprint in the body. A fragment of calm, of almost forgotten warmth. Something minuscule, but real. Something that didn’t scream to exist, but had survived, silently, through everything else.
I was small. Really small. Lying in a bed — a real bed, for once. Not an astral cocoon woven of mist. Not an illusion planted in the hollow of a doubtful memory. A real bed, tangible, with a mattress a little too firm and a rough sheet that scratched the skin with every movement.
I remember breathing loudly, deliberately, even exaggeratedly, hoping she’d believe I was already asleep. And she was there. Present. Sitting on a low, simple chair, fading into the room as if she didn’t want to take up space. Curved back, fatigue in her neck, tousled hair.
She wasn’t looking at me. She barely moved. But she was watching over me. And she sang. Very softly. Almost to herself. A hoarse voice, veiled by the hours, worn by the days, but so soft, so real it became unreal.
The words reached me blurred. Foreign, maybe. Incomprehensible. But it didn’t matter. The words weren’t what mattered. It was what I felt. What vibrated in the air, in her throat, in her presence.
It was... love. A raw, awkward, silent love. A love that asked for nothing. That didn’t even know how to be seen. That sang to a child she believed asleep, expecting nothing. Just so the world, for a second, would remain a little gentler.
And I feel. For real. Not a circling thought, not an emotion drowned in noise. Just... a full sensation.
And it’s not hatred. It’s not sarcasm either, nor one of those heavy regrets that keep me awake at night. No. It’s something else. Something barer. More intimate.
Just a shiver, faint but deep, that moves through me slowly, from throat to belly, like a mute whisper my body had recognized before my mind could grasp it — a discreet vibration, but so real it was enough to keep me there, still, breathing a little slower, as if I were finally... alive.
For the first time in too long... I accept that love. Not as a burden, not as a debt, not as pain disguised as tenderness.