I was the silence between two breaths

I stood on a ridge at dawn, not moving, not speaking—just listening. The air held its breath like it knew something I didn’t. Then I realized: I wasn’t standing on the mountain. I was inside the pause before a word is said, the space where a client hesitates before asking for help. No one else was there. Just that stillness, thick as snowfall, and the weight of what isn’t said. When I woke, my hands were still clenched around nothing.