They told me I could be anything. I chose to be the one who waits.

At first, it was a choice, deliberate and proud. I waited for their calls in the quiet hours, ready to absorb their tears, their fears, their failures. I waited for their needs to reach a crescendo, for their lives to break open just wide enough for me to crawl in and patch the cracks. I told myself this was love: to sit in the shadows, still and steady, while the world revolved around everyone else.

The waiting used to be filled with purpose. It felt noble, almost holy, to hold my breath and suspend my needs for the sake of others. I thought I was a lighthouse, guiding them safely to shore. But the shore is empty, the sea still. The horizon stretches endlessly, mocking me with its nothingness. The waiting has turned from purpose to habit, a hollow ache that fills the silence but not the void.

The candle flickers, casting long shadows that twist and stretch like specters. I watch them move, feeling a strange kinship with their aimlessness. They, too, are waiting—waiting for the light to fade, for the darkness to take them. And when it does, what then? What becomes of a shadow with no light to anchor it? What becomes of me when there is no one left to wait for?