The Keeper

Detachment did not arrive all at once.

It came in pauses.
In moments where her hand no longer reached for the phone, then hovered, then rested.
In the absence of urgency rather than the presence of certainty.

She noticed she no longer needed to check.
Not because she was free.
But because the need had softened.

There was a strange sadness in that.
Not heartbreak.
More like the ache you feel when a room you once lived in is empty, and you realise you won’t be rearranging the furniture again.

Relief came with it. Quietly.
Unannounced.

The body felt it first.
Shoulders lowering.
Jaw unclenching.
Breath dropping deeper without instruction.

The mind still wandered there sometimes.
Out of habit. Out of muscle memory.
But it no longer stayed.

This was not closure.
It was loosening.

She now understood that healing was not a clean severance.
It was a gradual return of energy.
A slow reinhabiting of herself.

There was tenderness in the almost.
The almost free.
The almost detached.

And she let herself stay there without forcing an ending.

Because the body knew.
And it was already relaxing.