I walked out too fast.

So fast I didn't give myself time to think, to breathe, or to pull myself together. My body felt stiff, my throat tight, my chest burning like something was eating me alive from the inside. I was humiliated, offended, shaken, drowning in a toxic mix of shame and anger that made me want to claw my own skin off.

It was night.

A cold night, the kind where the wind doesn't just bite your bones, it crawls straight into your head. I threw my coat on almost blindly, my hand