I’m fine

Raya had become an expert at answering the question.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine”
She said them when her friends asked why she stopped coming out.
She could say it’s like crying in the shower
She could say it after having a terrible day
She could say it while staring at the ceiling at 12 a.m, wondering when life had become something she simply survived instead of lived.
Nobody questioned it anymore.
Maybe that was the problem.

That night, Raya sat beside her bedroom window. The city outside was still awake, cars moved like tiny lights, birds flying in groups.
She watched everything with seeing anything.
Her phone was beside her, she picked it up and opened her message, the empty screen staring back at her.
There where people she could text.
People who would probably answer, but she didn’t know how to explain what was wrong.
Nothing terrible has happened, that was the problem.
She was just…. Tired
Tired of pretending she wasn’t.
At 1:17 her phone light up.
Unknown number : “Are you awake?”
Raya stared at the message, for some reason she answered
Raya: “yes”
Three days appeared and then:
Unknown: “me too”
And somehow that was the first honest conversation she’d had in months. ❤️