For as long as I can remember, I have lived slightly apart from the world.
It is not something anyone else notices. There are no walls, no visible borders, nothing dramatic enough for someone to point at and say, this is where it started. It exists quietly, the way habits do. Slowly. Naturally. So naturally that I sometimes forget it was something I built.
I call it my bubble.
From the inside, everything looks normal. People walk past me every day, laughing, complaining, touching each other's arms without hesitation. Life moves freely around me. I can see it clearly, sometimes with painful clarity, but it never fully reaches me. Sounds arrive softened, as if filtered through glass. Emotions lose their sharp edges before they touch my skin.
Inside the bubble, I am safe.
Safety has rules. I learned them without anyone teaching me. Do not expect too much. Do not reach out first. Do not give people the chance to disappoint you. If you stay distant enough, nothing can hurt you deeply. I follow these rules without thinking now. They are part of me, stitched into the way I breathe and speak and exist.
My room looks exactly the way you would expect it to. Pale walls. Clean surfaces. Everything in its place. Nothing that demands attention. The window faces the street, but I rarely lean out of it. I prefer watching from a distance. Books stacked neatly on my desk. Curtains pulled just enough to let the light in, never enough to invite noise.
The air inside always feels still. Untouched. Predictable.
At night, when the house goes quiet, I lie awake and listen to my own breathing. Slow. Controlled. Familiar. It reminds me that I exist even when I feel invisible. There is comfort in that solitude. Comfort, and a quiet emptiness I try not to acknowledge for too long.
Downstairs, life follows patterns that never really change.
My dad, Stark Vance, leaves early every morning. His footsteps are steady, confident. His voice is firm even when he tells me goodbye. He believes in discipline, in structure, in strength that does not bend easily. He loves me, I know that. He just loves in a way that does not involve questions or emotional uncertainty. He protects by providing, by maintaining order.
My mom, Clara Vance, is different. She moves gently through the house, humming softly while she cooks, pausing in doorways as if she senses something unspoken. She notices the small things. The way I hesitate before answering. The way I avoid eye contact when questions get too close.
"Did you eat?" she asks.
"Yes," I say, even when the answer is incomplete.
"Did you have a good day?"
"It was fine."
It is always fine.
She does not push. Sometimes that feels like kindness. Other times, it feels like being left alone in a room where I do not know how to speak.
At school, I exist quietly and efficiently. Teachers describe me as attentive, capable, well behaved. Classmates know my name but not much else. I answer questions when I am called on. I smile when someone speaks to me. I disappear the moment the attention shifts away.
I watch people instead of joining them.
I notice how friendships form so easily, how people lean into each other without fear. I see the way they share stories, secrets, pieces of themselves. From inside my bubble, it looks reckless. Dangerous. I tell myself I am smarter for keeping my distance. Safer.
Loneliness does not arrive suddenly. It settles in slowly, like a dull ache that becomes part of the background. I learn how to live around it. How to ignore it. How to convince myself that safety is worth the silence.
Until one afternoon, something changes.
I am sitting by my bedroom window, notebook open in front of me, pages blank. I am not trying to write anything in particular. Just passing time. Then movement catches my eye. The house next door, empty for months, is suddenly alive.
Boxes are stacked near the gate. Voices float through the air. Footsteps disturb the quiet I had grown used to.
I had not realized how comforting that emptiness had been.
There is a boy near the fence, lifting a box with an ease that surprises me. His sleeves are rolled up. His hair is slightly messy, like he does not care enough to fix it. He moves without hesitation, without the careful self awareness I carry everywhere.
Then he laughs.
The sound slips through my half open window before I can stop it. Warm. Unfiltered. Real. It startles me enough that my hand reaches for the window frame, ready to close it. My fingers curl around the edge, and then I pause.
The laughter lingers in the air.
I watch him longer than I intend to.
Over the next few days, I notice him everywhere. Sitting on the front steps in the evening, staring up at the sky as if it might answer him. Helping inside the house. Talking easily, openly. Existing without apology.
Sam Grith. I learn his name later.
What unsettles me is not his presence. It is the absence of anything protecting him. No shield. No visible distance. No bubble. He does not seem fearless. He seems willing. Willing to feel, to risk, to be seen.
That frightens me more than it should.
One evening, as I walk home, I see him struggling with a box near the gate. My instinct is immediate. Slow down. Stay unnoticed. Keep moving. Avoidance is familiar. Comfortable.
But he looks up.
Our eyes meet.
There is no judgment in his expression. No curiosity. Just recognition, as if my existence makes sense to him.
"Hey," he says.
The word reaches my bubble and does not bounce away. It stays, pressing lightly against the surface.
"Hi," I reply before I can stop myself.
It is a small exchange. One word each. Nothing that should matter.
But as I walk away, my steps feel unsteady. My heart beats louder than it has in a long time. The silence around me feels different now, thinner somehow.
That night, lying in bed, the bubble feels heavier. Less like protection. More like distance.
I built it to keep myself whole.
I do not know yet that it is slowly turning me into something incomplete.