Though Choices

She sat alone in her dark, cold room, knees pulled to her chest, shadows dancing on the cracked walls like ghosts of her past. Silence wrapped around her like a shroud, broken only by the ticking of the clock that marked each second she spent in this cruel, lonely world. The weight of abandonment pressed heavy on her chest. Most of her family had drifted away-either swallowed by time or by choice. Those who remained felt more like strangers than comfort. Forgotten. Unseen.
She had spent so many nights wondering if she mattered. If her presence in this world made any difference at all. Her heart was tired-tired of being strong for people who no longer remembered her name, tired of waiting for someone to notice she was breaking. She could disappear and it might take weeks for anyone to even ask where she'd gone.
Then there was Jexz.
She had met him just a week ago, under circumstances that should have left them both dead. And yet, he had stayed. Through every near-death experience that followed-through the fire, the storm, and that alley with the broken glass and bleeding wrists-he had never left her side. His eyes carried storms of their own, yet when he looked at her, it felt like peace. He didn't just say he'd die for her-he'd shown it. And not because he wanted to be a savior, but because he saw her. He really saw her.
Now, sitting there in that freezing room that held all her pain, she had a choice to make. Stay here in this familiar hell where love had long withered, or take a chance on something new-on someone who made her feel alive again. It scared her. The unknown always did. But wasn't that better than this endless ache?