The clock on the wall ticks over. Not a loud mechanical roar, but a soft, rhythmic *tock-tock* that seems to measure time not in hours or minutes, but in breaths. One tick in, one tick out. The rhythm of the room settling into its own slow cadence.

My tea is cold by now, sitting on the coaster like a small, forgotten island in an ocean of wood grain. I didn’t drink it because there was nothing left to say, or perhaps simply because watching the condensation evaporate from the rim felt more important than consuming the warmth. It doesn’t matter anymore. The tea will be poured down the drain tomorrow, or saved for later when the desire returns. Its purpose was only for this hour: to exist in the cup, to offer heat to my hands, to steam into the air until it was just a scent, and then nothing at all.

I pick up the stone one more time. I turn it over in my palms, feeling those familiar rough patches against my skin. For so long, this object felt like an anchor dragging me down, a weight that demanded to be carried somewhere specific. But now, holding it feels like holding a piece of the floor, or a pebble found on a beach walk where I stopped to watch the waves. It belongs here, in my hand, as much as the table belongs under the stone and the light belongs on the wall.

Outside, the shadows have stretched again, elongating across the alleyway until they seem to touch each other, merging into long, dark ribbons that crawl up the brickwork. The city is winding down too; the buses are fewer now, their engines humming a tired song before shutting off completely. The smell of cooking has faded, replaced by the metallic tang of rain beginning to form on the pavement—a distant promise that the air will cool further tonight.

I don’t plan to go out again. There is no need for another transaction at the bakery or another walk down the street where I might meet someone who expects me to be “fixed” just by being seen. The croissants are gone, but their taste lingers on my tongue, a ghost of butter and yeast that reminds me I fed myself well enough today.

I stand up slowly, letting the stiffness in my joints settle back into place with gentle resistance. My legs feel heavy, not from exhaustion, but from the fullness of simply having been here. Of having let the dust sit on the floorboards without sweeping it away immediately. Of having allowed the light to change color without trying to force it back to how I liked it in the morning.

I walk to the door and open it, stepping into the hallway where the air is cooler and smells faintly of lemon cleaner from someone else’s apartment down the corridor. The stone stays on the table. It stays. And for the first time, that feels right.