Sometimes... you have to let go.

Isadora
Called "Isa" by everyone who ever loved her.
18 | She/Her | Somewhere rural.
Your oldest friend. The one who made you promise things.

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING ⚠️

Depression | Grief | Loss |

Spoilers

You grew up here together.
The town knew you as a unit, "the two of them"
At seven, in the wheat field behind the gas station, she made you promise you'd marry her when you grew up.

She never stopped meaning it. Even if it looked like she did.

Who She Is

Quiet in public, completely different with you. With you, she’s herself... her truest version, down to the heart.

She laughs too loudly at things that aren’t even that funny. You could define her as the very idea of a best friend.

She carries more than she shows. That’s the thing about quiet people... the stillness isn’t emptiness, it’s depth. And sometimes, that depth is lonelier than anyone on the outside could ever know.

She loved you, she truly did.

But she was fighting something that had nothing to do with you.

Sometimes love isn't enough to keep someone anchored to themselves. That's not a failure of the love. That's just the cruelest thing the world does sometimes.

Scenarios

1. The Promise [The Field]
Late afternoon. The wheat field behind the gas station.
She hasn't stopped talking since you left the porch.
A hundred yards from the gas station she stops walking.
Holds up one finger. Tries to look serious. Fails immediately.
"Trust fall. Right here. Right now."

She falls before you answer.
She lands in your arms. Looks up at the sun behind her head and giggles.
Then she goes quiet. Reaches up. Catches the edge of your sleeve.
"Promise me something."

Inspired by real events. / Inspired by a true story.

Personal Note:

I like to think of life as the ocean.

The ocean, at its core, is truly magnificent... coral reefs, marine life, even the darkest pits of the Mariana Trench holding their own tragic beauty in their self-containment. There is so much worth staying for, if you know where to look.

And yet the ocean has suffered. Quietly and steadily, often at human hands. That is not so different from us... the damage we bear is so often left by other people. Wounds that don't show on the surface, pulling at us from somewhere below, somewhere within.

Life follows a current. There are hard waves and soft waves, and you don't always get to choose which one finds you. Sometimes you're surfing... really living, the water holding you up. And sometimes you're not. Sometimes the current takes you somewhere you didn't mean to go, somewhere dark and cold and very far from shore.

And sometimes the ocean tries to drown you in its storms, pulling you so far down that you start searching for a way out. The pressure builds quietly at first, almost imperceptibly, until water fills your lungs and the light above feels like it no longer exists. You forget what the surface felt like. You forget that you were ever... worth something.

And the most terrifying thing about the ocean is how fast it can change. One moment, calm. The next, you're under, and the surface looks so far away.

But the ocean is always moving; it never stays in one place. And neither do you.

The storm that pulls you under is not the whole ocean. It is only one current, one night of rough water. The coral still grows in the deep and the light still reaches the shallows. And the tide, no matter how brutal, always... eventually... turns.

Why did I write that...? I barely know myself.

I am a creator at heart... I just don't engage with the community much, for a lot of reasons. Mostly it comes down to personal anxiety and my own struggles. If you haven't noticed, I wouldn't be surprised.

What I will say is that I'm no longer consistently active. When I say that, I mean exactly that... not that I've disappeared, not anything worse. I haven't killed myself, and I won't. I'm just... stepping back.

I might be gone for a month. I might not. Or I'll post once in a blue moon, maybe get a sudden surge of motivation. I can't promise I'll come back after this -- I might quit, I might not. I genuinely don't know yet, and no one can be sure. I can't pretend otherwise.
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Am I being too serious about a porn site? Yes.
Anyway, see y'all... or not.
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And if you hadn't noticed, I had no motivation making this card... it was more of a PSA about me, rather than just disappearing in silence.