(Funmi's POV)
Funmi hadn't realized how loud her life had been until it wasn't anymore.
No constant buzzing from her phone. No carefully worded updates sent home. No emotional temperature checks before every decision. The silence that followed the confrontation felt unfamiliar like walking into a room after music had stopped and realizing how tense your body had been the entire time.
She woke up one morning and reached for her phone out of habit.
Nothing.
Her chest tightened before she could stop it.
So this is what it feels like, she thought. The aftermath. The echo.
She went through her routine on autopilot class, notes, coffee that tasted burnt no matter where she bought it. But beneath everything was a strange awareness of herself. Her thoughts weren't being filtered through responsibility first. They were hers. Untethered.
That scared her more than the confrontation ever had.
Later that afternoon, she sat across from Lizzy at the small kitchen table, textbooks spread between them. Lizzy was sketching again while reading, pencil moving absently across the page margins.
"You're quiet," Lizzy said gently.
Funmi smiled faintly. "I'm not used to hearing my own thoughts this clearly."
Lizzy looked up. "What are they saying?"
Funmi hesitated. "That I don't know who I am when I'm not holding everything together."
The words surprised her as soon as they left her mouth.
Lizzy set her pencil down. "You're still you."
"But who is that?" Funmi asked. "Not the translator. Not the buffer. Not the one who makes everything acceptable."
Lizzy thought for a moment. "Maybe that's something you get to discover now."
That idea landed softly but it stayed.
That evening, Funmi skipped a call from home without explanation. She didn't feel strong doing it. She felt shaky. But she also felt something close to relief.
She went for a walk instead.
The campus was glowing with that familiar early-night calm lights warm, conversations floating past without attachment. She watched people exist without accounting for anyone else's emotional needs and wondered when she had learned to believe that wasn't allowed for her.
She sat on a bench and let herself feel it all.
The guilt.
The grief.
The relief she still didn't know how to justify.
She thought of her mother's voice—sharp when disappointed, quiet when manipulative. Of how love had always come with expectations attached. Of how being "the good one" had been both a compliment and a cage.
For the first time, Funmi allowed herself to ask a question she had avoided her entire life.
What do I want?
The answer didn't come immediately.
But the silence that followed wasn't empty.
When she returned home, Lizzy was curled up on the couch, half-asleep, a blanket pulled around her shoulders. Funmi stood there for a moment, watching her sister breathe, steady and peaceful in a way that felt earned.
She realized then that choosing herself hadn't meant abandoning Lizzy.
It meant finally standing beside her, unbroken, unburdened.
Funmi sat down and let herself rest.
Tomorrow, she would start again.
Not as the strong one.
Just as herself.