Sleep betrayed me. Or I betrayed sleep. Either way, nights became a place of thin, sharp dreams. I'd wake at three a.m., chest tight, replaying conversations like a radio stuck between stations. The old comforts — tea, a familiar movie — tasted like cardboard. The world narrowed down to little tactical moves and the ledger on my nightstand.
The ledger was bleeding into other parts of me. I started to be wary of normal joys. When my mother called, I felt guilty for not telling her the whole truth. When I smiled at a coworker's joke, I felt fake. The revenge had an appetite; it wanted occupancy of my head, my time, my jokes. It wants to be the center. That's how it eats a person alive.
I tried to hold to rules — no physical violence, no public meltdown, no setting family members against her — but rules blur. You begin to justify odd things because the hurt feels enormous and hungry. It's a slippery slope. Raj kept me tethered with humor and bluntness, but even he saw the hollows under my eyes.
One night, after a tiny win—Arjun's name appeared in a forwarded chat asking for an explanation—I sat and laughed alone. It sounded like metal being bent. Then I felt stupid. What had I become? The man who once forgave a burnt tea was now happy at someone else's unraveling. That thought punched me harder than any of my moves.
I tried to sleep. I failed. I got up and walked the empty apartment. The photographs on the shelf looked different; the frames seemed like windows into a story someone else had written. I took a breath, whispered under it — "Welcome home, stranger," — and realized I meant it more to myself than to anyone else. The phrase had become an incantation, a way of marking the house as no longer a sanctuary but a battleground.
In the small hours, I promised myself one thing: when this is over, I'll measure what's left. If I find myself hollow and mean, I'll stop. If I taste regret that chokes me, I'll try to fix it. But that promise sits on shaky ground; promises are fragile when you're fueling them with pain.
For now, the sleep thief had me. And when dawn came, I got up because waiting is the job. The machine keeps humming. The plan keeps unfolding. And every morning, the house offers its silent greeting — and I answer with a vow: "Welcome home, stranger."