I stood in the kitchen, knife in hand, chopping vegetables with a precision that should have matched the practiced ease of my movements.
The rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the blade against the cutting board filled the space, a steady beat that kept my hands busy while my mind raced.
Layla's words from earlier echoed in my head, soft and insistent. "You're amazing. Don't let them take that away from you."
The sketches, those fragments of a dream I'd long since buried, felt like ghosts in the back of my mind.
They'd once been so much more to me proof that I could be something different, something that didn't have to fit the pristine, hollow mold my parents had crafted for me. They had always ignored everything I had done.
But I had learned the hard way that dreams didn't matter if they weren't "good enough" for them. The sting of their words, their indifference, had been enough to make me put my pencils down for good.
