She refilled the cup
twice before realizing she
wasn't actually thirsty.
The water was just an
excuse to leave the
desk, to stand, to let
her hands remember they
could do something small.
The kitchen light hummed
the way it always did at
this hour, and the
window behind the sink
reflected the same
half-finished sentence she
had been staring at on
her screen. She didn't
finish the thought. She
let the cup sit on the
counter, still full, and
went back to her chair
with the strange
permission of knowing she
had at least made one
unnecessary decision on
purpose. The sentence was
still there. She was
still tired. But
somewhere underneath the
tiredness, a small
current had shifted, the
way a room shifts when a
window opens a single
inch and the air finally
remembers there is an
outside.