There was a time when my mother knew my routines.
Not the important ones. The small ones. The ones that didn't need reminding.
She knew I liked my cereal soggy. That I hated the sound of the kettle screaming too long. That I folded my clothes instead of hanging them, even when it made no sense. She noticed when I went quiet before dinner and when I talked too much after.
Back then, it didn't feel like being watched.
It felt like being held in place.
I remember sitting on the kitchen counter while she cooked, my legs swinging slowly, my notebook open on my lap. I wasn't meant to be writing. Homework could wait. She didn't tell me to put it away.
"What are you writing?" she asked, not looking up.
"Nothing," I said quickly.
She smiled. "Nothing's usually something."
She tasted the food, frowned, added salt. The window was open. Afternoon light spilled in without asking permission.
I wrote anyway.
Sometimes I read things out loud. Sometimes I didn't. She never pushed. She never reached for the notebook. She trusted me with my own thoughts.
When I finished a page, I tore it out and folded it into quarters, tucking it into my pocket like it was something I needed to keep close.
She didn't ask why.
Later, when I lay on the couch with my head in her lap, she brushed my hair slowly, careful not to pull. Her fingers moved like they had nowhere else to be.
"You think too much," she said once, not unkindly.
"Is that bad?" I asked.
She paused. "No. It just means you need space to do it."
I believed her.
There were nights she sat on the edge of my bed and stayed longer than necessary. Nights she listened to stories that went nowhere. Nights she laughed at things that weren't funny, just because I'd said them.
I didn't feel like I had to choose my words back then.
I just spoke.
I didn't know how rare that was.
At ten, I thought closeness was permanent. That once someone learned the shape of you, they wouldn't forget it. That warmth didn't need protecting.
I didn't know that adults could read the same words and hear something else.
Or that some words stopped being safe once they were no longer yours alone.
When I think back now, it isn't the fights I remember. There weren't many. It's the ease. The way silence didn't mean distance yet. The way being quiet didn't feel like something I had to earn.
I held my notebook differently then.
Careless. Open. Certain it was mine.
I didn't know I was writing toward an ending.
I just thought I was writing.