I stopped going to work. Stopped answering texts. Sat on my apartment floor with the windows open, even though it was November, even though the neighbors stared. I let the cold in. I let the sound of traffic in. And I let it come.

The hardest part wasn't the sadness. It was the rage. A hot, stupid, beautiful rage at every person who’d told me to calm down. At every teacher who’d said "too sensitive." At every version of myself who’d smiled and nodded and drowned a little more.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. My hair was a nest. My eyes were red. But for the first time in years, I recognized the person looking back. Not because she was calm. Because she was moving.

It was a fact. Like gravity. Like rain. Like the river that would keep running long after I was gone, and the one that would keep running inside me until I wasn't.

Outside, the clouds were gathering again. Good, I thought. Let it come.

The words came out wrong. They always did. But for the first time, they felt true.

"I feel myself torrent," I whispered into the collar of my jacket.

"I feel myself torrent," I said again. This time, I didn't whisper. And this time, it wasn't a confession.