G “Go on,” the other voice says, easy, bright, like it’s smiling while it talks. I’m sitting on my bed again, light spilling in like it chose me. I tell it, “I freeze when crying starts.” The room stays normal. My chest doesn’t. Joy is what people see on me, clean and practiced, but here I am counting breaths so I don’t disappear into stillness. U “Up there on a call,” I explain, “this is how it goes.” They cry. The sound stutters. I don’t interrupt. I don’t leave. I just sit. Time stretches thin like wire. The other voice laughs softly, “That’s still being there.” I want to believe it, but my hands stay useless in my lap while the screen keeps glowing and help never finds a shape. M “Move closer,” the voice suggests, kind like it always is. So I picture real life. Same tears. Same weight. My whole body goes cold. Not just my hands everything. I’m warm with people when they’re okay, but grief turns me to winter. I don’t touch them, not because I won’t, but because I’m scared my cold will speak louder than anything I could say. M “Maybe you’re overthinking,” it says, still gentle, still proud of me. “You’ve done this before.” And I have. I’ve mastered the calm face, the laugh that steadies rooms. That’s what I show the world, someone light, someone solid. But inside moments like this, I stand at the edge of action, knowing the answer exists and hating that it won’t come to me. Y “You keep asking about the difference,” the voice says, almost playful now. Online or here, it doesn’t matter. The pattern matches. I don’t end this sad. I end it honest. I’m not what I was. Every day I choose better. Still, when the test arrives, I rhyme freeze with fail, fail with freeze, and hide the truth in plain sight the difference is