It was her becoming me.

The deeper I went, the less she felt like a stranger and the more she felt like a memory my bones had kept without telling me. Deeper, and her voice became my first language. Deeper, and the walls I'd built turned out to be mirrors.

Only the deep.

She was the bottom.

Only me.

And when I finally stopped swimming against the current of myself, I understood: every layer I peeled back, every shadow I stepped into—it wasn't me finding her.