The Hollow Heart

I don't remember the day I began to disappear.

Maybe there wasn't one.

Maybe it happened slowly-through every apology I didn't owe, every burden I carried for someone else, every piece of myself I quietly gave away because I believed kindness meant sacrifice.

Then I met someone who made me want something for myself.

For the first time, I wanted to be loved.

Instead, I became another reason someone cried.

This isn't a story about heroes or villains.

It's about grief that refuses to fade, guilt that never sleeps, and a man trying to find himself beneath the ruins of who he used to be.

Some people survive their past.

Others build cathedrals from its memories.