Night draped itself across the city like a heavy cloak. Inside Adriella's apartment, the silence was unbearable.
She sat curled on the couch, her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them. The lights were dim, shadows stretching across the room. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath catching as though her ribs were too fragile to hold it all in.
Adaora had stayed after their walk, refusing to leave Adriella alone in her unraveling. She sat across from her now, quiet but watchful, giving Adriella space to speak if she wanted to.
But Adriella couldn't speak. Not yet. She could only feel the weight of it all—the indifference of the world, the endless ache in her chest, the memory of Tobi's eyes, the laughter she'd heard earlier that day that had felt like knives.
Finally, it cracked.
The sobs tore out of her in violent waves, as if they had been waiting at the gates of her body and could no longer be held back. She buried her face in her knees, the sound raw, animal, broken.
"I can't do this!" she cried, her words muffled by her own arms. "I can't keep pretending I'm okay. I can't keep living like this while everything keeps moving forward without me. I feel like I'm stuck in the same moment, over and over, and I can't get out!"
Adaora moved instantly, sliding to the couch beside her, wrapping her arms around her trembling frame. "Let it out, ella. Don't hold it in. I'm here. I've got you."
But Adriella shook her head violently, tears wetting her skin. "No, you don't understand! He was my everything. My best friend, my love, my future. And now—now it's all gone, and I don't know who I am without him. I don't know how to exist in a world that doesn't even notice he left me."
Her words dissolved into sobs again, her entire body shaking with the release.
Adaora held her tighter, whispering into her hair. "I do understand. Not because I've lived your story, but because I see you. I see how much it hurts. And I won't let you disappear in it."
For a long time, they stayed like that, Adriella's cries echoing in the quiet apartment. The storm inside her raged until it had no strength left. Slowly, painfully, the sobs softened into whimpers, and the whimpers into silence.
Her body slumped against Adaora's shoulder, drained. Her chest ached, her eyes swollen, her head pounding—but for the first time in weeks, the pressure inside her had lessened. She had screamed the silence out. She had broken open, and she was still here.
Adaora stroked her back in slow circles. "You know what this means?" she murmured.
Adriella blinked against the wetness on her cheeks. "What?"
"It means you're still alive. You still feel. And if you can feel this much pain, then one day, you'll be able to feel joy again too."
Adriella's lips trembled, her voice hoarse. "I don't believe that."
"Then I'll believe it for you," Adaora said firmly.
Silence stretched again, but this time it wasn't heavy. Adriella lifted her gaze, her eyes red and swollen, but in their depths was something fragile—like the faintest flicker of a candle in the dark. Not hope exactly. Not yet. But the suggestion of it.
She whispered, almost to herself: "Maybe… maybe I won't always feel like this."
Adaora squeezed her hand, her smile tender but certain. "You won't. It will take time. It will hurt. But you won't always feel like this. I promise."
For the first time, Adriella didn't fight the words. She let them rest inside her, fragile as glass, but real.
And as the night deepened, she realized that sometimes the breaking point wasn't the end. Sometimes it was the beginning—the first crack through which the light could one day seep back in.