I had to cancel on Liam again. Another Friday night swallowed whole, leaving nothing but a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. We were supposed to hit up that new place downtown, the one with the weird industrial vibe and the cocktails that smoke. I even bought a new shirt for it, something dark and sleek, to pretend for a few hours that the dust motes dancing in my apartment aren't a permanent fixture, that the air doesn't smell faintly of disinfectant and old paper. But the thought of forcing a smile, of feigning interest in someone else’s mundane triumphs, felt like trying to lift a boulder with my bare teeth. The well is dry. Or maybe it’s not dry, maybe it’s just caked over with something thick and black, refusing to let anything else through. It’s always the same story, isn't it? A sudden shift in my brother’s mood, a phone call that starts calm and ends with him convinced the floorboards are breathing. And then I’m there, talking him down from whatever ledge he’s found, piecing together the broken fragments of his day. Sometimes it feels like I’m patching a sieve, every hole I cover, two more appear. He needs me, I know. My mother… she’s in another room entirely these days, her memory a tangled knot. My other siblings, well, they’ve perfected the art of selective amnesia. So it’s just me, holding the thin thread that connects him to the real world, and some days that thread feels like it’s cutting into my own flesh. I looked at my reflection after I sent the text, the one full of vague apologies and promises of “next time.” My eyes were bloodshot, the faint hollows beneath them deeper than usual. A stranger stared back, someone brittle and tired, whose shoulders carried an invisible weight. The anger, though. That’s what stung. Not at Liam, not even at my brother, but at this relentless current dragging me under. At myself, for letting it. For having nothing left. For staring at my phone at 2 AM, the screen a stark blue against the darkness, feeling utterly, completely ALONE. And for wanting, just once, to throw something, to shatter the quiet, to just SCREAM until my throat felt raw. But I didn’t. I never do. I just lie here, listening to the house creak, wondering when this silence will finally break me.