The Little Things

Chapter 15

Beneath the Weight of Love.

She felt like giving up.

The world had become a heavy burden, crushing her with an unbearable weight that seemed to grow with each passing day. Every morning, she woke up feeling emptier than before, the remnants of her spirit eroding away until all that was left was a hollow shell. The vibrant energy she once carried had long since faded, leaving her drained and brittle, like a flower that had been deprived of sunlight for far too long.

There was no more fight left in her. She had been fighting for so long—fighting to stay afloat, keep her head above water, and find a reason to keep going. But now, it felt as if she was drowning, sinking deeper into a dark, suffocating abyss where the light of hope could no longer reach her. Every attempt to claw her way back up only seemed to pull her further down, until she was too exhausted to even try anymore.

She couldn't do this any longer. The thought echoed in her mind, over and over, a constant reminder of the despair that had taken root in her soul. She had always been strong, always the one to push through, to carry the weight of others on her shoulders. But now, that strength had abandoned her, leaving her weak and vulnerable, like a fragile bird with broken wings.

Her heart ached with a pain that was almost too much to bear. It wasn't just physical exhaustion; it was the emotional toll that had left her shattered and defeated. The endless cycle of hurt and disappointment, of giving and giving until there was nothing left, had finally taken its toll. She had reached her limit, and there was nothing more she could give.

Yet she kept going, day after day, not for herself, but for him. He was her anchor, the one thing that kept her tethered to this world, even as everything else crumbled around her. She survived for him because she couldn't bear the thought of leaving him behind. The love she felt for him was a double-edged sword, both a source of strength and a source of pain. It kept her alive, but it also kept her trapped in a life that had become unbearable.

And then there were her parents, the ones who should have been her source of comfort and support. But they didn't see her pain. They didn't notice the way she was falling apart, piece by piece. They were too absorbed in their own lives, too distant to understand the depths of her suffering. But she cared, even though it hurt. She cared because she couldn't stop. After all, their indifference only made her try harder to be what they needed, even when it broke her.

She was a ghost of the person she once was, wandering through a life that felt more like a prison than a home. Every day was a struggle to get out of bed, to face the world, to pretend that she was okay when inside she was crumbling. She wore a mask of normalcy, hiding the storm that raged within her because she didn't want to burden anyone with her pain. She didn't want to be the one who needed help, who couldn't keep it together.

But the cracks were showing, and she knew it was only a matter of time before she shattered completely. The weight of it all was too much, too heavy for her to carry alone. She was tired—tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of surviving. She wanted to let go, to close her eyes and drift away into a place where there was no more pain, no more sadness, no more anything.

She sat in the quiet of her room, the silence pressing down on her like a physical force. The tears came, unbidden, spilling down her cheeks as she finally allowed herself to feel the depth of her despair. She was alone, so terribly alone, and the emptiness inside her was a chasm that seemed to grow wider with each passing moment. She wanted to scream, to cry out for help, but no sound came. All that was left was a hollow ache, a numbness that seeped into her bones and made her wonder if she would ever feel whole again.

Yet she had the will to keep going. For him. Oh especially for him. For her parents. For the people who didn't see her, who didn't understand. She kept going because she didn't know how to stop, even when every part of her wanted to. She was surviving, not living, and she didn't know how much longer she could keep it up. The future stretched out before her, bleak and uninviting, and she wondered if there would ever be an end to this suffering, or if she was destined to carry this burden until it finally crushed her completely.

In the darkest corners of her mind, she wished for release, for the peace that she couldn't find in this world. But she stayed, trapped by love, by duty, by the fragile threads of hope that still lingered, even when she wished they wouldn't. She stayed because she didn't know how to do anything else. After all, giving up would mean letting go of the one thing that still mattered to her.

And so, she endured, one day at a time, even as the darkness closed in around her, even as the weight of her pain threatened to drown her. She survived, not because she wanted to, but because she had no choice. And in the quiet moments, when the world was still and the pain was too much to bear, she whispered a silent plea to the universe: to take this burden from her, to give her the strength to keep going, or to finally let her rest.