I sat there and the silence was different but it was a quiet I hadn't heard in so long and it was almost like a physical thing pressing down and then lifting all at once and the air in the room just changed when the nurse said "they're gone" and I just felt this... release but not like grief or anything dramatic just this very calm, very steady exhale and I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath for months, years even and it was like a biological imperative finally fulfilled. And I remember Mom, always 'Mom' never 'my mother' just Mom, saying "are you sure you can handle this and your studies, kiddo" and I'd just nod and say "yeah, it's fine" and it never was but what was the alternative and the textbooks piled up and the research papers went unread and the deadlines became abstract concepts and I was running on caffeine and pure adrenaline and the fear of failing her and failing myself and the constant low hum of the oxygen concentrator but now even that was gone. The last few days were just this blur of tubes and machines and the horrible, sweet smell of antiseptic mixed with something metallic and sick and I remember holding their hand and it was so cold and thin and just saying "it's okay, you can rest now" and I meant it and I meant it with every cell of my being but it felt like a script, like I was performing a role I'd studied for but never actually rehearsed and then the final breath, a whisper really, and then nothing and just that sound of the machines flatlining and the monitors turning off and the sudden, profound quiet. And I'm still here, in their apartment, and the light comes in differently now and the dust motes dance in the sunbeams and I should be crying or screaming or doing something dramatic and appropriate but I just feel this... peace but it's a dangerous kind of peace, a quiet that suggests an absence not a presence and the essay for my anthropology class is due in three days and I can't even remember what the prompt was and I just keep thinking about that silence and how it tastes and smells and feels and it’s everywhere now and it’s just me and the silence and the textbooks and the dust.