ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

10. 𝙉𝙊 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙄𝘾𝙀𝘿

010, 𝙉𝙊 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙄𝘾𝙀𝘿

.⋆𐙚 🍒

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN THE KIND OF PERSON WHO NOTICES THINGS.

|| 𝙉𝙊𝙒 𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙔𝙄𝙉𝙂... 𝙊𝙑𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙄𝙉𝙁𝙇𝙐𝙀𝙉𝘾𝙀, 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙉𝙀𝙄𝙂𝙃𝘽𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙃𝙊𝙊𝘿 ||

Not the obvious stuff—people talking, things being said—but the things under the surface. How long someone hesitates before answering. The pause before a laugh. The way someone's tone flattens when they're lying, even if their face doesn't change.

It's not a skill. It's a habit. Survival, maybe.

Growing up in a house that was all sharp corners and tension coiled too tight, you learn to read the temperature of a room before you even step inside. You start picking up on the weight of footsteps without realizing it. The difference between casual and dangerous. The kind of silence that creeps in right before something breaks.

You learn to hold your breath when a door slams just a little too hard.

You learn how to shrink. How to disappear without leaving the room. How to go quiet in ways that don't look like giving up but feel exactly like it.

You learn to blame yourself for weather you didn't cause.

And you learn that words aren't always weapons— sometimes it's the look that comes after.

You learn to shrink. To go quiet.

Eventually, you start mapping it. Cause and effect. Pattern and consequence.

You memorize which version of yourself keeps the peace— and then you rehearse her until she's the only one left.

And when you leave— because eventually, you do— you don't take much. Just a duffel bag and a mouthful of words you never got to say. But the reflex? That comes with you. The reflex stays.

Even now, in the soft light of the late morning filtering through the dorm window, it's still there. Still running in the background like white noise.

The alarm on my phone had stopped blaring hours ago, leaving behind the guilty echo of a missed class and a screen full of unread notifications. I stared at it for a moment, thumb hovering like maybe if I ignored it long enough, the day would reset.

No such luck, of course.

I roll out of bed slower than I mean to, the weight of last night still clinging to me in places I can't shake loose. Joints stiff, legs tangled in the blanket I didn't remember pulling up. My limbs felt heavy, like I hadn't just slept—I'd crashed.

The dorm was quiet, Hitch was either still asleep or had gone to class. I padded down the hall to the bathroom, towel draped over one shoulder. The air smelled like cheap soap and citrusy shampoo—Hitch's, probably. Someone had left the fan running again, humming low above the mirror.

I turned the shower on, twisting the handle all the way to the left until steam started to rise. The water was scalding at first, but I didn't step away. Just stood there, letting the heat bleed into my skin, trying to wash off the pieces of last night still clinging to me.

The warehouse. The diner. The way everyone moved like they'd been doing this for years. Laughing mid-bite, interrupting each other, passing syrup bottles without asking.

There were little things I couldn't stop replaying. The way Sasha pressed her forehead to the table when she laughed too hard, shoulders shaking like the joy physically overwhelmed her. How Connie always spoke with his hands—big, chaotic gestures that never matched the story he was telling. How Ymir tapped her thumb against her knee when she was holding back from saying something, and how Historia always seemed to notice, even if she didn't call her out on it.