It was a Tuesday in February, cold and damp, the kind of night that makes you want to drive straight home.
I stopped at my parents' house after work, still smelling like mint toothpaste and fluoride.
My room upstairs is still exactly the same. Same white wicker dresser, same comforter with the faded roses.
I found an old disposable camera in the back of my closet. Three frames left.
I thought about taking a picture of the wallpaper — pale blue, with tiny white flowers I've stared at for sixteen years.
But I didn't. I just stood there, feeling the quiet weight of a room that never changed while I did.
Everyone else left this town. I stayed, cleaning teeth in the same building where I had my own cavities filled.
The battle nobody sees is the one I fight every day, measuring who I am now against who I was at fifteen.
That wallpaper saw both of us. And it never said a word.