Castorice closed her bedroom door softly, as if the quiet might help her heart hurt less. It had only been a few hours since the breakup. The words were still echoing in her head—short, awkward, final. Now, her room felt different. The walls that once felt comforting seemed to press in on her, holding memories she didn’t want to think about. She sat at her desk, her laptop open to an unfinished assignment. The cursor blinked patiently on the screen, waiting for her to start. Castorice wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and told herself she had to keep going. Deadlines didn’t care about heartbreak. Outside, snowflakes drifted slowly past her window, covering the world in white. Inside, the only sounds were the quiet hum of her fan and the occasional sniffle she tried to hide. She read the question again and again, her mind drifting back to what went wrong, to what she could have said differently. After a while, something shifted. She typed one sentence. Then another. The words didn’t come easily, but they came. With each paragraph, her chest felt a little lighter. The assignment became more than just work—it was a distraction, a small lifeline pulling her out of her thoughts. Castorice leaned back in her chair and looked around her room. The posters, the messy bed, the stack of books on the floor—they all reminded her that this space was hers. Even if her heart was broken, she was still here. Still trying. She saved her work, closed her laptop, and watched the snow continue to fall. Tonight wasn’t about healing completely. It was about surviving the sadness, one sentence at a time.