In the darkness, as I lay on the bed, tears streaming down my face, the weight of my story pressed against me like a suffocating fog. Writing it all down had been like tearing open wounds I didn't even realize were still festering. Each word was a scalpel, slicing through layers of denial and numbness, exposing truths I had buried so deeply that they felt foreign when laid bare. The patterns—the pain—were all there, staring back at me like grotesque shadows I could no longer ignore. I had spent years clinging to people who hurt me, who used me as if I were nothing more than a pawn in their games. And now, with every sentence I wrote, the realization became clearer: perhaps I had let them.

"Ivy," I whispered into the void, my voice trembling and raw. "Where are you? I need you." The world had been cruel to me—so cruel—and even now, it felt like it was laughing at my pain. But then her presence stirred, cold and familiar like a shadow creeping closer. Her voice was velvet laced with poison as she whispered back: "Nothing has changed. Do you think it will?" The words cut through me like ice, a bitter reminder that no matter what truths I uncovered in my writing, the world would remain indifferent. Ivy's smirk lingered in the recesses of my mind—a haunting echo of strength forged from pain—and I realized that even as I tried to confront my past, she was still there, waiting for me to falter.

The irony wasn't lost on me. Two decades had passed since Ivy first emerged—two decades of supposed healing and growth—yet here I was, still reaching for her in moments of weakness. As I lay there, staring at the ceiling through blurred vision, I wondered if I had healed at all. Had anything truly changed? Or had I merely been living in the illusion of recovery while the wounds continued to fester beneath the surface?

Perhaps Ivy hadn't been my salvation but my anesthetic—not healing my pain but simply numbing me to it. The thought sent a shiver through me. After all these years, all the therapy, all the work I'd done to integrate my fractured self, had I actually healed? Or had I simply adapted Ivy's coldness as my own—her detachment becoming my shield, her numbness my comfort? At fifty-five, I found myself questioning whether the lines between us had blurred beyond recognition. How much of her had become me? How much of me had become her?

"You think writing it all down will fix you?" Ivy's voice echoed again, sharper this time. "Words on a page won't change what happened. They won't change who you are—who we are."

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of those words settle over me like a shroud. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps nothing had changed. And perhaps that was the most painful truth of all.