It was only their second time speaking, and yet the conversation unfolded with a weight that surprised her. It began lightly—she had joked about how restless she had felt during the session. But then he sent her a message, one that pierced straight through her defences. It described her feelings so precisely it seemed as though he had stepped inside her mind, given shape to thoughts she could never quite put into words.
"You can't stay still because you can't sit with yourself," he wrote. "And that's because you don't want to feel what's inside you. Maybe the emptiness, the shallowness—something you don't like about yourself."
She stared at the words, struck silent. Something about them felt too true, too raw. Almost without thinking, she asked him, How can one not think? How did you turn that part off? Because the more someone tells me to sit in silence, the louder my thoughts become. Thoughts about the very things I wish to forget. And then I only end up feeling worse.
His reply came back gently, with a kind of stillness she could almost hear in his voice:
"Maybe something is troubling you—something you'd rather not talk about. That's okay. We all carry our scars. But remember, we're here simply to experience and observe life, nothing more. The ambitions we chase are often just ways to escape from ourselves, distractions we create to stay occupied. In doing so, we lose sight of the beauty of the life we're meant for. Pursue your goals, but stay in touch with yourself. Let them come from a place of love—not fear, not escape."
Something shifted in her after that. She read the words again and again until they carved themselves into her. Even later, she would call them her favorite—words she repeated to her cousin, who only nodded and said softly that they defined her.
In the stillness, she broke open. The tears came hard and fast—raw, unrestrained, the kind that leave you emptied and soothed all at once. Each sob lifted something from her shoulders, like a weight she hadn't realized she had been carrying. She prayed for him too—for the strange, unexplainable way God had used him to remind her of what she had forgotten, of what she needed to return to.
By the end, she felt lighter, unburdened. And that was when she slept.