[Maddie’s POV]

I wake up crying—not the gentle kind where tears slip down your cheeks while you’re still half-asleep.

The kind where your whole body shakes and your chest heaves and you can’t breathe properly because something inside you is breaking and you don’t even know what it is.

Emily’s voice cuts through the fog of misery. “Maddie? Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” Her hands are on my shoulders, gentle but urgent, and I can hear the panic threading through her words.

I try to answer but can’t form words around the sobs. My face is wet, my throat raw like I’ve been crying for hours instead of seconds. Maybe I have been. Maybe I’ve been crying in my sleep and didn’t know it.

“I don’t know,” I finally manage to choke out. My voice comes out broken and pathetic. “I don’t know, I just—I feel terrible.”

Emily doesn’t ask more questions. She just pulls me close, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other rubbing circles on my back. “It’s okay,” she murmurs into my hair, her voice soft and soothing. “It’s okay, I’m here. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

The kindness makes it worse. I cry harder, burying my face in her shoulder, clinging to her like she’s the only solid thing in a world that won’t stop spinning.

She doesn’t let go. Just holds me and strokes my hair and makes those quiet shushing sounds that should feel condescending but don’t.

I don’t know how long we stay like that. Long enough for the worst of the sobs to subside into hiccupping breaths. Long enough for my face to go numb from crying. Long enough for the sun to paint our room in pale morning light that feels too bright for how I feel inside.

When I finally pull back, Emily’s eyes are wide with concern. “I’m supposed to be at practice,” she says, glancing at her phone on the nightstand. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not like this.”

“You should go,” I say, but my voice is so small and broken that even I don’t believe it. Of course she believes it even less.

“Absolutely not.” She gets out of bed with the kind of decisive energy that makes me love her even when I feel like this. “I’m making you tea. Stay here.”

I stay. Not because she told me to, but because moving seems impossible. I sit there in bed, arms wrapped around my knees, and try to understand why I’m falling apart when nothing specific is wrong.

My brain offers helpful suggestions: you’re weak, you’re broken, you’re too much, you’re going to lose everything.

Emily returns with tea that smells like chamomile and honey, a box of tissues under her arm.

She sits on the edge of my bed and hands me the mug, then pulls tissues from the box one by one as I need them. “What can I do?” she asks. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

I take a sip of tea to avoid answering. It burns my tongue but I don’t care. “Nothing,” I finally say. “There’s nothing wrong. I’m just being stupid.”

“You’re not being stupid.” Her hand finds mine, fingers lacing through. “Maybe it’s stress about Regionals? That’s coming up soon, and with everything that’s been happening—”

I nod because it’s easier than explaining that I don’t know what’s wrong. That I wake up every morning feeling like I’m drowning and I can’t figure out why the water keeps rising.

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