Love is pain

TW! Implied self harm

Winter finishes settling over the town like a quiet verdict.

The snow that falls now does not feel magical anymore. It just piles into gray ridges along sidewalks and melts into cold water that seeps through the edges of your shoes. The sky spends most days the color of dull metal, and the sun appears only briefly, like it is checking whether the world is still worth lighting.

Life keeps moving anyway.

It always does.

You wake up before your alarm again.

Your room is dim. The early morning light leaking through the blinds is pale and thin, barely strong enough to outline the furniture.

Your hand drifts across the nightstand before you are fully awake.

Phone.

The screen stays dark until you tap it.

Nothing.

No messages.

Not that there should be.

You still reach for the phone every morning before you remember.

Old habits are stubborn like that.

You place it back down.

The ceiling looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.

You stare at it until the alarm finally rings.

School feels smaller now.

Not physically. The building is the same. The lockers still slam shut with the same metallic echo. The same clusters of students fill the hallways, talking about homework and parties and futures that stretch brightly in front of them.

But the place feels hollow.

You sit through classes with a notebook open in front of you. Sometimes you write things down. Sometimes you realize ten minutes later that you have been staring at the same sentence without understanding it.

A teacher calls your name once.

You answer automatically.

The room moves on.

It always moves on.

After school you walk home alone.

Your hands stay buried in your pockets against the cold.

You pass familiar places without slowing down.

You remember how her hands felt warm in yours even though the air was freezing.

The memory surfaces briefly.

Then sinks again.

At home the house is quiet.

You drop your bag near the door and move through the hallway slowly. Your footsteps echo faintly against the walls.

Your room greets you with the same stillness as always.

Desk.

Lamp.

Books stacked near the edge.

You sit down without turning on the overhead light.

The lamp casts a small pool of warmth over the desk surface.

You rest your elbows there and stare at nothing for a while.

Minutes pass.

Maybe longer.

Eventually your fingers drift toward something sitting near the corner of the desk.

You do not remember placing it there earlier.

Or maybe you do and simply did not think about it.

The metal is cool when you touch it.

Your hand closes around it loosely.

You turn it once, feeling the weight shift in your palm.

There are small mechanical parts. Hinges. Grooves worn smooth with time.