The mattress gives beneath me the way earth gives under a fresh grave, only softer, only kinder. I sink into it and let it take my shape. My hand finds the blanket seam, frayed and familiar, rough enough to keep me here. I think about toast, about coffee, about standing up. The thoughts come without heat, like items on a list left by someone else. If I stay still, the day cannot demand anything of me.

Light lies across the floorboards at an angle that feels wrong for morning. Dust floats through it in slow spirals. Under the dresser a faded sock peeks out, greyed by too many washes. A crayon rests near the nightstand, split paper sleeve, blunt red wax. I look past it to the mug on the dresser, the book left open, the pen that rolled and stopped. Ordinary objects, which means safe objects. The other things are just clutter. They have no story. I say that to myself and wait for it to become true.

The room feels close, as if its corners have taken a step inward while I slept. The ceiling looks lower by a breath. I tell myself I am tired. I tell myself the building shifts. I tell myself anything that keeps the pressure outside my chest unnamed.

I straighten the blanket. There is no wrinkle, but I straighten it anyway. A small warmth flickers in me, like laughter remembered from a different room, a different life. It rises, tries to form a shape, and I push it down with the thought of the tap. I see my hand turning it off yesterday. I replay it until it is neat enough to hold. I have turned off the tap. I have done the right thing. I can stay here.

A wooden block sits near the dresser, tipped over. I do not remember it being out. I pick it up. Its corners are chewed soft. I fit it against another block half under the bed, then a third, lining them into a straight row. The click of wood on wood calms me more than it should. I keep going until the line looks deliberate, as if a small plan lives in it.

I try the lamp. Click. Nothing. I try again. A thin flash, then dead light. The bulb is fine, I am sure. The socket is fine. It is just a lamp. Still, my face burns with a private, childish anger. I sit back down and let my hand fall to the blanket seam.

From the closet corner comes a scrape, light as a nail on wood. I stop breathing. Nothing follows. I tell myself a pipe cooled. The dresser settled. A neighbor moved a chair. I take the explanation quickly, before my body can reject it.

A marble rolls across the floor and taps the baseboard. Then another, then two more. They do not scatter like dropped things. They travel in a slow rhythm and stop near the door, glossy in the slanted light. My stomach tightens hard enough to hurt. I crouch and gather them up. Cold glass in my palm. A basket sits by the dresser, lined with cloth that smells of soap and something sweet. I do not recall bringing it out. I place the marbles inside one by one, careful as if they might bruise.

When I stand, the room seems to tilt a fraction. The sun on the floor fractures into thin triangles, bright and wrong. I close my eyes. When I open them again, the angle has settled. I tell myself it was my head. I tell myself not to undo that thought.

I open the top drawer of the dresser, only to do something normal. Receipts. Cables. A tangle of pens. A small sock balled tight like a fist. I stare at it, and my hands go numb. I shut the drawer gently, as if I have disturbed a sleeping animal.

I keep finding things that should not be surfacing. A tiny plastic animal behind the chair. A thick-handled spoon in the sink. A shoe under the bed, too small for me, scuffed at the toe. Each one lands in my sight like a stone dropped into quiet water. I gather them quickly and put them away in the closet, in the high box, under towels. I do it fast, because speed gives the illusion of control. The closet fills. The room keeps offering.

Above the bed, the mobile sways without a draft. Stars, circles, and a small cardboard figure turning slowly, never showing the same face twice. I have told myself it is decoration, a thing I never took down because I was busy. The lie feels thin now. The mobile swings through shadow and pale light, patient, relentless.

A click comes from the bookshelf. The wind-up toy. I have not touched it in months. It clicks once, pauses, clicks again. The sound is small and exact and makes me feel pinned. I whisper, “Not now,” like a warning. The air stays empty.

Then a sound threads through the wall, high and brief. A cry that is not in this room but tears through me anyway. It stops. The silence after is worse. I sit frozen, waiting for the ordinary world to explain itself. No footsteps. No voices. No television. Nothing. My throat closes as if I am swallowing something sharp.

I go to the kitchen because my body cannot stand the room any longer. I fill the kettle. The tap runs too long before I hear it, and the splash in the sink is suddenly enormous. My hand shakes as I turn it off. I stand there staring at the dry metal, terrified of the sound it might make again.

When I return, the lamp is on. I know I left it off. The light pools softly on the blanket. In that oval, caught in the weave, is a single fine dark hair. Not mine. Not anyone who lives here now. I reach for it and stop short. My chest folds inward. I brush it into my palm, then do not know where to put it. The trash feels like a crime. My pocket feels worse. I set it on the dresser beside the crayon.

My legs give out and I sit on the floor. The walls are steady now, no tilting, no tricks. The room has stopped pretending with me. I pull open the lower drawer without meaning to. Under gloves and old letters is a folded paper, thick and creased. I unfold it.

A drawing. A house with too many windows. A tall figure, hair like a bright scribble. A smaller figure holding its hand. Above them, uneven letters: “us.”

Something in me breaks cleanly. I do not try to catch it. The sound that comes out of my mouth is not a word. It is raw and childish and old. I fold forward until my forehead touches the floorboards. I cry until it hurts to breathe. I cry for the weight of a small body that used to sleep beside me in the early mornings. For the quick feet that used to pad down the hall. For the voice that used to make mistakes on purpose to make me laugh. For the future my mind keeps reaching for and finding empty.

I say the name into the blanket seam. Once. Again. It does not fix anything. It only makes the absence real in air, and that is both unbearable and necessary.

When the crying quiets, I lie there with my cheek on the wood. The mobile turns above, the little cardboard figure passing through shadow and light. The basket of marbles sits by the dresser, full and still. The crayon waits where I put it. The room hums, not cruel, not kind, just constant.

I climb back into bed. My eyes burn. My ribs ache. I pull the blanket to my chin and hold the frayed seam between my fingers, as if it is a rope tied to something I cannot let go of. The other side of the mattress is smooth, untouched, and yet I can feel the old dip there anyway, the shape my body will never stop expecting.

The light outside thins. The room softens. I close my eyes because there is nothing left to defend, nothing left to tidy into a safer story. I let the hum carry me under.

The mattress gives beneath me the way sand gives under a footprint. My hand finds the blanket seam, cool and rough. Light lies across the floorboards at a strange angle. Dust drifts through it. I think about toast. Coffee. The tap. The book left open. The mug I never finished. A faded sock under the dresser. A crayon near the nightstand. The mobile swaying above.

I stay still long enough to feel the bed settle, then longer. The day begins again, and I begin again with it, in this room where everything keeps its shape.