And for the first time in a long time, she felt no need to share it with the world. The world could wait. She was busy listening to herself.
Later, she blew out the candle and lay in the dark, her body humming like a struck bell. She thought: This is mine. This, right here, is entirely mine.
She undressed not for a lover, not for validation, but for the simple pleasure of feeling air on her skin. She stretched, watching the muscles in her arms shift under the amber light. She ran her fingertips over the small scar on her ribcage—a childhood fall from a tree—and smiled. Every line, every curve, every imperfection was a sentence in a story only she could fully read.
Here is a fictional narrative: