It seeps through the thin gap in the curtains and lands straight on my eyes like an accusation. My head throbs in slow, deliberate pulses, as if it is punishing me for something I already regret.
I am still on the couch.
Same clothes. Same jacket twisted under my shoulder. One shoe on, the other kicked somewhere out of sight. My phone lies face-down on the floor, screen dark, mercifully quiet.
For a second, I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember how I got here.
The party. Josh driving. The silence in the car. My mother's clipped voice. Richard's smile. That stupid table. That word… Alliance.
Then, after Josh went to bed, the rest comes back in pieces I do not want.
The bottle. The burn. The moment I decided I did not care anymore.
My stomach turns.
I sit up too fast and regret it instantly. The room tilts. I plant my feet on the floor and wait for the world to decide whether it plans to stay put.
There is a glass of water on the coffee table.
Beside it, a folded scrap of paper.
Josh's handwriting. Uneven, rushed, like he wrote it while half-asleep.
Text me if you skip class.
That is it. No lecture. No disappointment spelled out in capital letters. Just that.
Something tight twists in my chest.
I have always tried to be the responsible one. The good older brother. The one who did not fall apart even when everything else did. The one who made sure Josh had at least one steady thing to look at.
And here I am. Hungover on a couch. Reeking of alcohol. Wondering what exactly I am teaching him now.
I press the heel of my hand into my eye.
"Pathetic," I mutter to the empty room.
The word sticks.
I drink the water slowly. It does not fix anything, but it lets me breathe without gagging. When I set the glass down, my hand is still shaking.
I stare at the wall across from me. There is a faint crack running down it, one I have never really noticed before. It looks older today. Everything does.
My mind, traitor that it is, starts replaying last night anyway.
Mom's voice. You should be grateful.
Richard's laugh. As if writing is a real plan.
Lena's face on campus, the way her smile faltered when I did not give her what she wanted. Like I had taken something from her instead of the other way around.
Samuel's words, calm and cruel. I already took the only thing you cared about.
It all stacks up, one expectation on top of another, until I feel buried under the weight of other people's needs.
They all wanted something.
My mother wanted control. Richard wanted leverage. Samuel wanted revenge. Lena wanted reassurance without responsibility. The college wanted silence and compliance.
Even love, apparently, came with conditions.
I let my head fall back against the couch. It hits softly, but the sound echoes inside my skull.
For months, every feeling has been loud. Rage. Panic. Grief. Jealousy. Fear. Like alarms going off one after another, never letting me rest.
But now there is nothing explosive left.
Just this dull, bone-deep exhaustion.
I don't feel like screaming. I don't feel like crying. I don't even feel like drinking again.
I just feel done.
Done reacting. Done explaining. Done bending myself into shapes that make other people comfortable.
The thought scares me a little. It feels unfamiliar, like standing in the quiet after a storm and realizing you don't know who you are without the noise.
I look at Josh's note again.
He didn't say don't skip. He said if.
Like he trusts me to decide.
I exhale slowly.
Maybe that is it. Maybe that is the smallest, saddest wake-up call of all. Not anger. Not betrayal.
Just the realization that I cannot keep living as a response to everyone else.
I rub my face, feeling the roughness of stubble under my fingers.
"I need to stop," I say out loud, to no one in particular.
Not drinking. Not loving. Not existing.
Just letting everyone else write my life for me.
The room stays quiet.
After so long, the silence finally doesn't feel like it is trying to swallow me whole. It just sits there, heavy and honest.
I reach for my phone.
Not to scroll. Not to distract myself.
Just to text my brother.
Me: I am going to class.
I hit send.
Then I sit there a little longer, breathing, letting the hangover ache, letting the truth settle in.
I don't open the laptop because I have something to say. I open it because the room is too quiet and my head is too loud.
The screen lights up my face in a way the mirror never does. It doesn't ask me who I am supposed to be today. It doesn't care if I am a good son or a bad brother or a disappointing almost-ex or a problem nobody wants to solve properly. It just waits.
I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, fingers hovering uselessly over the keys. For a moment, I consider closing it again. Lying down. Doing literally anything else.
Instead, I type a sentence without thinking.
I am tired of being discussed like a mistake.
I stare at it. It looks dramatic. Too honest.
I won't delete it.
Another line follows, uneven and raw.
Everyone keeps deciding what I mean to them before asking who I am.
My chest tightens, not sharply, not like panic. This is slower. Heavier. Like something long buried shifting inside me.
I keep typing.
No structure. No plan. No metaphors worth saving.
Just words spilling out, like I have been holding my breath for years without noticing.
I am the son my mother wanted to reshape. I am the son my father regrets not protecting enough. I am the ex someone refuses to let go of. I am the brother who learned too early how to stay quiet so others could fall apart safely.
My fingers move faster. I stop checking if the sentences are good. I stop wondering if they make sense. I stop trying to sound like a writer.
This is not writing.
This is bleeding without the mess.
I write about the party. About standing in a room full of people who smiled at me like I was an investment. About my mother's voice when she said I should be grateful. About how easily she offered me up when it suited her.
I write about Lena.
She looks at me like I am home. But when things get heavy, she always reaches for the door instead of the couch beside me.
That hurts more than I expected.
My throat tightens. My vision blurs just enough to be irritating.
I keep going.
I write about Samuel. About the anger that used to scare me and now just makes me tired. About how two boys can grow up with the same absence and still become enemies because no one told the truth early enough.
I write about Josh. About the note on the table. About how he never asks for explanations, only shows up.
At some point, the room changes without me noticing.
The light shifts. The coffee goes cold. My phone buzzes somewhere behind me and I ignore it without checking who it is. I don't feel guilty. For once, I don't feel pulled.
I am here.
My hands ache. My shoulders burn. There is a dull pressure behind my eyes that has nothing to do with alcohol or sleep deprivation.
And still, my chest feels lighter.
The realization comes slowly, the way you only notice a limp after you finally sit down.
I am not trying to be impressive. I am not trying to be strong. I am not trying to be understood.
I am just trying to stay alive inside my own head.
The thought scares me and comforts me at the same time.
When I finally stop, the document is a mess. Half-formed thoughts. Repeated sentences. Typos everywhere.
I don't reread it.
I don't need to.
I close the laptop gently, like it might bruise if I am careless, and lean back against the wall. My eyes close on their own.
I feel enough to breathe.
And somewhere in that quiet, a small, stubborn thought takes root.
Maybe this is the first thing that is mine. Maybe it is the one thing no one gets to take from me.