person gets bored and stops looking for you. So there I was: behind the couch, crouching in the closet, underneath the bed--not wanting to give up and come out of my hiding spot just yet--because maybe he’s still looking. But maybe he’s wandered off… Maybe he went downstairs to finish eating the rest of the Cheetos. But I waited. I waited until I forgot that I was waiting, until I forgot that there was anything more to me beyond stillness and quiet, and it didn’t matter anymore whether or not my brother came for me. The hiding was enough. (You see, you win a game of hide and seek when no one finds you. Even if they aren’t looking.) Eventually, though, I came out from hiding, and when I did it, it was because I wanted to. I broke myself out of my own trance and pushed open the door without a teacher’s hand on my shoulder. I emerged from my silence and came back into myself like I was breaking the surface of the water that I was drowning in. At first, my breathing was sharp and unsteady and I struggled to take my next breath. Every other inhale was interrupted by me sputtering out the water that had seeped into my lungs when I was still beneath. My throat was sore from coughing and my lungs felt damp and maybe I didn’t breathe as easily as I did before, but I was free from the way I used to live: empty, aimless, drifting away and further and further below. I had finally come out of hiding. I had rewritten the game and decided it was time to play it by my own rules. Ready or not, here I come, I call out. To myself, to my peers, to the world. Here I come, ready or not.
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