Depression isn’t just sadness. It’s weight—constant, invisible, and cruel. It’s not crying every day, it’s not feeling anything at all. It’s forgetting what laughter feels like, what warmth feels like. It’s knowing the sun is out, but swearing the sky is still black. It’s guilt for breathing, for staying, for not being the person everyone remembers.

It started junior year—the day my mother died. One moment she was humming in the kitchen, and the next I was standing in black beside a casket that didn’t feel real. People said the right things: “She’s in a better place,” “Time heals,” “You’ll be okay.” But it didn’t heal. Time didn’t help. It just buried me deeper.

I stopped talking. Not out of anger, but because I didn’t know how. What words are there when your world stops turning?

I drank to shut it up. Smoked to fake a pulse. I wasn’t trying to die—I was trying to feel something. I pushed away my best friends. I ghosted their messages, ignored their knocks. They stopped coming. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have stayed either.

Except Rafe did.

Rafe Cameron. My chaos, my calm. He should’ve walked away when I stopped answering the door, when I wouldn’t meet his eyes, when I snapped or cried or said nothing at all. But he didn’t. Every day, like clockwork, he came. Sat on the edge of my bed even when I stayed curled up and silent under layers of hoodies and pain. My room’s always dark now. Curtains shut, lights off, air stale. It doesn’t smell like me anymore. It doesn’t feel like me. It’s not me.

Before this, I was loud. Light. I’d dance in the kitchen barefoot, leave notes on mirrors, laugh until I couldn’t breathe. I was the friend who knew what to say, who kept secrets, who swore life was a gift even when it was hard. I miss her. I wonder if she’s still in here somewhere, buried under all this nothing.

I haven’t brushed my hair in days. Showered? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t keep track anymore. The only reason this room isn’t rotting is because Rafe quietly picks up the mess. He doesn’t say much. Just folds my clothes, brings water, opens the windows even when I hiss at the light. And he stays. When everyone else left, he stayed.

Right now, I feel his fingers brush my forehead, gently tucking the hair away from my face. His touch is soft, reverent, like I might break even more. I hear the familiar rustle of him leaning down. His lips press into that same spot on my neck—quiet, grounding, familiar. That’s when the tears come, every time. Because I want this to stop. I want me back. I want to want again.

I don’t say a word. But he knows. His arms pull me close, and even in this black hole, I feel his heartbeat. Steady. For both of us.