Selena.
I didn't realize I had walked that far until the cave was gone, not just out of sight but out of reach in a way that made something inside me feel strangely untethered, like whatever had held me in place before had quietly loosened without asking for permission.
The air felt different away from them, lighter in a way that should have brought relief, but instead it left something hollow behind, a space I didn't quite know how to fill, and that emptiness lingered no matter how far I went.
Still, I kept walking, because stopping would mean thinking, and thinking would drag me back to everything I was trying to leave behind.
There was no plan guiding me forward, no destination waiting at the end of it, just the quiet need to put distance between myself and everything that had just happened, between myself and them, and between myself and the version of me that had stayed too long hoping for something that was never going to come.
