The apartment is quiet.

  I’ve been sitting in the middle of the floor for a while. Not doing anything. Just sitting. The curtains are open for once and afternoon light comes across the floor.

  I am very tired.

  Not the tired that sleep fixes. I stopped being able to fix it with sleep around age nine and it has been underneath everything since, the hum behind all the other noise, and lately the hum has been getting louder than the noise.

  If I had been easier.

  If I had been enough.

  If I hadn’t made the wish.

  I know. I know these thoughts aren’t true. I’ve known that for years. Knowing doesn’t stop them from coming at two in the morning. Knowing doesn’t fill the space that the if onlys live in.

  I tried therapy once. Third session I started to explain, the mother, the sentence, the wish, the reunion, the step-sister who doesn’t know, and I heard myself from the outside and I couldn’t finish. I paid. I left. I didn’t go back.

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  I should have gone back.

  On the wall: the note.

  When mom comes back, I’ll tell her I’m sorry and then I’ll show her how much I miss and love her.

  I wrote that in my dorm room seven years ago. I’ve moved it to every wall since. I look at it every morning. I don’t know if I keep it because I still believe it or because taking it down feels like giving up the last thing.

  I stand up.

  I walk to the wall and I look at it up close. My own handwriting. My own hope.

  I found her. I stood on her step. I asked her if she was happy. She is. I want to hug her, to tell her how much I missed her. To tell her to come back. But I couldn’t. I’m afraid of what happens. That was six years ago, and I am still afraid of what happens next.

  I put my hand flat on the wall beside the note. I stay like that.

  I’m still here, I think. That person who wrote this is still here. She’s just. So tired.

  I don’t take the note down.

  I go to the kitchen and drink a glass of water.

  I think about texting Lilia. I don’t. She’ll hear something in it. She always hears something. And she has done nothing wrong and she deserves to be happy and I will not be the thing that puts worry on her face.

  She’s okay, I think. Let her be okay.

  I go to bed.

  I look at the ceiling.

  One more day, I think. Try one more day.