The house I lived in was not made of wood or stone. It was built from expectation and inheritance, from silence arranged as order, from rituals passed down like furniture no one ever questioned.

We once moved together like three points in orbit. Time shifted the gravity, distance grew, and I learned that love does not mean holding on.

2317 days ago, I woke up from a drug induced coma to the face of an unknown woman with crystal blue eyes, brassy yellow hair and gray roots. I don’t remember speaking to her. I don’t think I could. But I vividly remember the shock in her face when she looked down at me after she adjusted something over my head. She gasped and then exclaimed, “Oh thank goodness honey. We didn’t think you were going to make it.”