The room is thick with the scent of cedar smoke and the low crackle of the hearth. Emily lies beside Jack, listening to the steady cadence of his heartbeat, and feels the weight of a silence she has carried for months. She loves him with a depth that frightens her, but beneath that love lives a persistent doubt: a whisper that she is failing some unnamed standard, that she is not enough. The fear has taken root slowly, and it has grown in the dark.
Quiet Reassurance
85 words·1 min