As the door clicked shut, Evelyn leaned back against the headboard, her hands trembling ever so slightly. She closed her eyes, letting out a shaky breath.
In the quiet of the room, she whispered to herself, “It’s better this way.”
But the silence that followed was deafening, pressing against her like an unbearable weight. For all her talk of being tired, of wanting to let go, the emptiness still hurt.
And yet, she smiled—a bitter, hollow smile. Because this, too, was part of her truth.
She had loved. She had lost. And now, she was ready to disappear.
Evelyn had once been a beacon of kindness and warmth—a girl who wore a tough exterior but had a heart too soft for this world. She would grumble about the stray cats near her house, calling them nuisances, yet secretly leave bowls of food by the gate.
Once, when one of those stray cats died, she buried it under a tree, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She didn’t eat for a whole day afterward.
How could someone who mourned a stray cat now stand indifferent, watching a living, breathing person suffer on the ground?