Dissonance

When King died, I thought the hardest part would be the silence. But it turned out, the silence wasn’t empty — it was clear. For the first time in years, I could hear myself think. The grief was there, heavy and constant, but underneath it was something else — a small, stubborn current of relief. Not because I’d lost him, but because it made me finally see the truth: I couldn’t stay here anymore.

The apartment had become another kind of cell. It wasn’t the basement from Long Island, dark and heavy with dust, but it wasn’t freedom either. It was just the same loneliness dressed in better light. I started to realize how often I described my life in metaphors of containment — the tomb, the tower, the cage — and how I’d never once called any of them home.

That thought hit me harder than I expected. When I thought about leaving, I didn’t imagine it as moving. I called it escaping. The word came naturally, almost accidentally, but it was the most honest thing I’d said in months. I hadn’t been living — I’d been surviving inside something I built to protect myself that ended up closing around me instead.

The day I decided to leave, I didn’t know where I’d go. I didn’t know how I’d afford it. I didn’t even know how to tell my family I wanted to go. But that didn’t matter. The decision itself — that one, small, defiant thought — was enough to crack something open.

It started with tiny shifts. I found myself opening my laptop again, writing outlines, sketching out content ideas. I started revisiting a business plan I’d had tucked away for years — a membership platform for HR professionals, a space for the community I’d always wanted to build. The idea scared me, but it also pulled me forward.

I reached out to the same guy who had built my website, and we started talking about the new project. Every time I opened his emails, I felt something unfamiliar: momentum. I started picking up consulting clients again — nothing massive, but enough to feel the rhythm of work returning. I paid my bills on time, even saved a little. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I’d had in a long time.

Somewhere in there, I realized I was looking forward again. Even grief couldn’t drown that small hum of possibility. When I thought about moving, my chest loosened. I’d sit in my living room and imagine a new space — light coming through a window I hadn’t seen a hundred times before, a room that didn’t feel haunted by my own routines.

One day, I bought a book. I hadn’t bought a book in years. It was called The Dissonance, a strange mix of Stephen King’s It and The Magicians. It was about escape — the kind that happens in your head first, before your body can follow. I started reading it that night and finished it two days later. It felt less like fiction and more like a message. The story was about getting lost in a world that mirrored your fears, and then finding your way back to yourself. Every chapter seemed to echo something in my own life. The word itself — dissonance — started to hum in me. That tension between who I was and who I might still become.

By October, the days started to move faster. I barely noticed the season changing, or the election chatter starting again. My world had shrunk to something smaller but steadier. I woke up, worked, built, planned, saved. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was mine. I wasn’t healed, but I was moving — and after everything, that felt like enough.

I’d even started scrolling through apartment listings, just to see what was out there. The prices didn’t scare me as much as I thought they would. I told myself, By the end of the year, I’ll be gone. It became a quiet promise I repeated when I brushed my teeth, when I folded laundry, when I looked out over the balcony at the city lights.

And for the first time in a long time, I believed it.

Then, one night, I got a text from an unknown number. I was on the phone, half-distracted, barely paying attention. It buzzed once.
Hola, ¿cómo estás? (Hi, how are you?)

I ignored it.

A few minutes later, it buzzed again.
¿Cómo va todo? (How’s everything going?)

I glanced at it, still talking, still not registering.

Then again — the third time.
Hola, ¿qué tal? (Hi, how’s it going?)

I sighed, typed back, ¿Quién es? (Who is this?)

There was a pause.

Then: ¿No tienes mi número guardado? (You don’t have my number saved?)

No.

And then it came — that familiar, almost careless message that hit like a chord I’d forgotten existed.

Soy Enrique. Hola, ¿qué tal?
(I’m Enrique. Hi, how’s it going?)