inside of me fights for you,

more than you'll ever understand.

Some people need a villain to make sense of their story.

If that role belongs to me in yours, I accept it.

Willingly.

People think it arrives all at once.

It doesn't.

It arrives in ordinary moments.

A phone that finally rings.

A name that still makes your chest tighten.

A voice you've heard a thousand times.

I carry you with me in the quiet spaces of my day.

So I let the silence stand.

Not as punishment.

Not as revenge.

They asked it like a joke, like a story meant for laughter, a reckless tale from younger years, a harmless mistake buried in the past.

I thought about it for a moment.

Not about stolen candy.

Not about broken rules.

Not about the lies that got me out of trouble.

Those were small.

The biggest lie I ever told never left a trail of suspicion.

Nobody questioned it.

Nobody called me out.

In fact, most people thanked me for it.

It was only two words.

"I'm fine."

I said it when my chest felt hollow.

I said it when sleep became a stranger.

I said it when every smile was borrowed and every laugh was rented.

I said it when I was drowning while standing perfectly still.

The worst part wasn't that other people believed me.

The worst part was how many times I repeated it until I almost believed it too.

Years of hiding storms behind clear skies.

Years of carrying weight and calling it strength.

Years of bleeding quietly and convincing everyone it was only rain.

So if you ask me what the biggest lie I ever told was, it wasn't complicated.

It wasn't clever.

It wasn't even convincing.

Just two words spoken a thousand times.