SHE DIDN’T SAY A WORD—JUST SAT DOWN AND HELD ME UNTIL I COULD BREATHE AGAIN

I don’t even remember walking into the restaurant.

I just needed to sit. Somewhere with lights and noise and people who wouldn’t ask questions. My hands were shaking so bad I spilled half the drink before I could even open the lid.

I must’ve looked like a mess—makeup smudged, coat half zipped, hair tangled from the wind and the crying and the panic. I couldn’t touch the food. Just stared at it like it belonged to someone else.

Then she walked in.

She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Not someone I’d call a friend. Not someone who should’ve noticed me at all. But she did.

She looked right at me. No hesitation.

And just sat down.

No questions. No “Are you okay?” No judgment. She just wrapped her arms around me like she’d been waiting to do it all day.

And I broke.

Right there in the middle of a damn Raising Cane’s.

I didn’t even try to stop it. I cried into her coat like I was seven again and the world had cracked open. And the wildest part? She held on. Not awkward. Not rushed. Just patient. Solid. Real.

It wasn’t until later, when my breathing slowed and my mind started to come back online, that I realized…

I did know her.

She used to be my RA in college.

The one who left a sticky note on my door freshman year that said, “You matter more than you think.”

I’d kept that note for years.

And now here she was again.

But before I could ask her how she even found me—

She whispered something I still haven’t told anyone.⬇️

(continue reading in the first cᴑmment)