After Angel said the words, something inside Emily began to break.

  Not suddenly. Not dramatically. Just slowly—like a crack spreading across glass.

  At first it was small things. Little changes in behavior, quiet signs that something was wrong. Emily stopped sleeping. Completely.

  At night she walked through the apartment silently from room to room—the kitchen, the living room, the hallway, and back again.

  Sometimes she stood on the balcony for long periods of time, staring down at the street below: the traffic lights, the moving headlights, the distant sounds of the city.

  Once I woke up at three in the morning and found her there, standing perfectly still with her hands gripping the railing.

  “Emily,” I whispered.

  She didn’t turn around.

  “I was just thinking,” she said quietly.

  “About what?”

  “How easy it would be.”

  The words made my chest tighten.

  “Easy to what?”

  Emily finally looked back at me. Her eyes were red, dark circles forming beneath them.

  “To stop everything.”

  I stepped closer immediately. “You’re tired,” I said gently. “That’s all.”

  She didn’t answer.

  The next week I took her to see a psychiatrist.

  The doctor was calm and professional, used to people like Emily.

  “Severe anxiety,” he said. “Possibly depression.”

  He wrote a prescription—sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication.

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  “Take these regularly,” he told her. “And try to rest.”

  Emily nodded, but her expression remained distant, like she was listening from far away.

  At home she placed the pill bottle on the kitchen counter.

  Angel watched quietly from the living room floor. She was building something with blocks—tall structures, connected shapes that looked almost like bridges.

  Emily opened the bottle, took one pill, and swallowed it with water.

  Angel stopped building.

  She looked at the bottle.

  Then at Emily.

  “Those won’t help.”

  Emily froze, her hand still holding the glass.

  “What?”

  Angel’s voice remained calm.

  “You already know.”

  Emily slowly turned toward her daughter, her eyes trembling with exhaustion.

  “Know what?”

  Angel looked thoughtful, as if choosing her words carefully.

  “You want to die.”

  The glass slipped from Emily’s hand and shattered across the kitchen floor.

  “Don’t say that,” Emily whispered.

  But Angel continued.

  “You’ve been thinking about it since last summer.”

  Emily’s breathing became uneven.

  “On the balcony,” Angel said quietly. “Looking down.”

  I stepped forward quickly.

  “Angel.”

  My voice was sharper than I intended.

  “That’s enough.”

  Angel turned her head toward me, her eyes calm—almost curious.

  “You asked why she’s afraid,” she said. “I’m explaining.”

  Emily sank into the chair beside the table, her shoulders shaking.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you keep saying these things?”

  Angel looked genuinely confused, like she didn’t understand the question.

  “You wanted me to be born.”

  The room went silent.

  Emily’s face crumpled and tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “I did,” she said, her voice breaking. “I wanted you more than anything.”

  Angel watched her for a long moment.

  Then she said something even quieter.

  “And now you wish you hadn’t.”

  Emily sobbed—violently, uncontrollably—like something deep inside her had finally torn open.

  I pulled Angel gently toward the hallway, away from the kitchen and away from the sound of Emily crying.

  Angel didn’t resist. She walked beside me calmly.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer immediately.

  Because I didn’t know how to explain something so complicated to a child.

  Finally I said softly, “Sometimes the truth hurts people.”

  Angel considered that, her eyes thoughtful.

  “But it’s still true.”

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “It is.”

  Later that night Emily sat alone in the living room. All the lights were off. Only the dim glow of the television illuminated the room, though nothing was playing.

  She stared into the darkness.

  “Do you hear it?” she whispered when she saw me.

  “Hear what?”

  “The countdown.”

  I sat beside her.

  There was no sound.

  No ticking.

  No clock.

  But Emily shook her head slowly.

  “It’s getting louder.”

  She pressed her hands against her temples like she was trying to block something out.

  “Seventeen months,” she whispered.

  A cold shiver ran down my spine.

  Angel was asleep in her room, curled beneath her blanket, breathing softly and steadily.

  A normal child.

  Sleeping peacefully.

  But somewhere in the apartment—inside Emily’s mind—

  The countdown had already begun.

  And nothing we did seemed capable of stopping it.