having to experience the real pain of it.

At that moment, I was thrust into darkness.

I closed my eyes. I breathed in.

I breathed out.

No one noticed.

This was all I thought I knew how to do. Breathe and close my eyes. Shut myself into my own world, shut out the world that was suddenly drawn around me, suffocating me and filling my eyes and nose and mouth and ears with a thick cotton that I couldn’t pick out. So I let it envelop me. I thought if I could close my eyes tight enough, and open them quickly enough, it would all be a dream. I would go back to my life instead of having to watch this nightmare version of someone else’s. The only home I knew was being pulled apart, the only people I could trust were showing me I couldn’t trust anyone, that all I had was myself.

I breathed in.

I breathed out.

No one noticed. I opened my eyes and felt the wetness of my cheeks burn in the light, my breath allowing me to feel every patterned bolt that had tattooed my face without my knowing. That had somehow placed themselves across the mask I had suddenly put on.

But I was fine. This wasn’t my life after all. This was someone else’s that I had to live with temporarily.