The day my inspiration arrives, she didn’t come with kindness. She didn’t come with grace. She came like a fist in the dark, breaking the silence I had been hiding behind. I was sitting in my usual spot, surrounded by my tools , the murmur of conversations, the distant scream of a siren. I thought I was safe there, in the noise, in the blur. But she found me anyway.

I didn’t recognize her at first. She wasn’t some radiant vision or light breaking through the clouds. She looked tired, worn down. Like she had been through the same streets, the same days, the same years, but felt them differently than I had. Felt them sharper. She sat across from me, didn’t say a word, but I felt her gaze on me like a weight. I tried to ignore her. Pretended she wasn’t there. I had gotten good at that ignoring things, pretending they didn’t matter, that they weren’t...