It happened again tonight. A month to the day since I last wrote, though it feels much longer. When I looked up at the moon, hanging in its faint, yellowed glow, I knew it was the same phase as last time. A waxing gibbous, half-grown and half-empty.

A month. Is that all it’s been? Time feels like a thread I dropped somewhere and never bothered to retrieve.

Inside my apartment, the air is still and thick, like a held breath. I don’t turn on the lights. A strange glow spills in from the balcony, though. I see it before I understand it. The balcony light is on. It shouldn’t be. And yet, somehow, I know why.

I step toward the light and feel his presence before I see him. He’s there, waiting, leaning casually against the rail, as if he belongs there. But he doesn’t.

“Sorry, but you aren’t welcome,” I say.

I can’t see his face clearly, but I recognize him. Not the man he became, but the younger version, as he looked in those old family photos—sharp, brash, eternal. This is the version he’s chosen to wear. Or maybe it’s the one I’ve summoned.

“Why can’t I come in?” His voice is soft, almost kind, and that throws me.

“You know why.”

“I know,” he says, like a sigh let loose from his chest.

“Don’t bother with the others. Mum and Dad aren’t home yet, so—”
“I know.” He cuts me off, his voice harder this time.

“It wasn’t easy, you know?” He looks away as he says it, like the words are meant for the empty night rather than me.

“Yeah, but you chose to be that way. To everyone.”

He doesn’t answer, not right away. There’s an ache in the silence, like the air between us is too thin to hold what we mean. Then, just as I blink, he vanishes, as if he was never there.

The stillness that remains is heavier than his presence. I open the balcony door and step outside. The night is cool and damp, smelling faintly of wet earth and green leaves. To my left, the hydrangeas catch my eye, their petals purple and blue, glowing faintly in the light. They don’t move, but somehow I feel them noticing me. Watching me, maybe.

I smile at them, something unspoken passing between us, and go back inside.

Life has been strange lately, like a reel of film that’s jumped tracks. Everything I know is unraveling. The past, the future—it’s all just threads slipping through my fingers. I’m standing in that hazy, in-between space, where nothing is certain and everything feels possible.

I get glimpses of the past sometimes. Shadows, voices, half-hearted invitations to return to the old patterns, the old way of being. But I don’t accept them. I’ve turned my back on all that, though I can’t quite see where I’m headed yet.

When I drew The Tower from the deck, my friends were alarmed. But me? I was relieved. The Tower meant destruction, upheaval, collapse. I craved it. Not the ruin, but the space it leaves behind—the silence after the storm. The chance to start again.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Somewhere outside, the hydrangeas are still waiting. The moon is still growing. And me? I’m still here.