She stopped asking questions.
That was how I knew something fundamental had shifted. Curiosity requires a belief that answers will help. She no longer believed that.
Instead, she narrated herself.
"My left side feels heavier," she said one morning, as if reporting the weather.
"My breathing feels angled."
"I don't think my legs start where they used to."
She said these things without panic. Without expectation. Just documentation.
I listened. That was enough.
She began moving more slowly, not from weakness but from negotiation. Every action seemed to require internal agreement first. Standing. Sitting. Turning over in bed. When she complied too quickly, her body punished her with sharp, corrective sensations that made her flinch and wait.
Once, she tried to stretch.
Her arms rose halfway, then stopped abruptly, elbows locking at an angle that looked almost deliberate. The muscles along her sides pulled tight, drawing her ribs inward as something beneath expanded outward instead.
She gasped and folded forward, hands braced on her thighs.
"I shouldn't have done that," she said.
I nodded. "You're learning."
She looked up at me then. Really looked. For the first time in days.
"Learning what?"
I didn't answer.
Later that day, she tried to leave the apartment alone.
She stood at the door with her hand on the handle for a long time. Too long. Her posture was wrong again, torso tilted slightly back now, like she was counterbalancing something inside her abdomen that insisted on pulling forward.
"I don't think I can," she said finally.
"Can't what?" I asked.
"Fit through," she said quietly.
The doorway hadn't changed. She had.
I stepped behind her, close enough that she could feel my presence without seeing me. Her shoulders lifted instinctively, bracing.
"You're overthinking," I said. "Just walk."
She tried.
Her foot crossed the threshold. Then her body hesitated, shuddering like it had met resistance where there was none. She pressed forward harder.
Something inside her shifted abruptly.
She cried out, collapsing against the doorframe. Her hands clutched at the wood, nails scraping, leaving pale marks that darkened slowly as the blood returned.
"I felt it push back," she sobbed. "Like it didn't want to go."
I guided her back inside.
"It's protecting you," I said. "From stress."
She nodded weakly, letting herself be led.
After that, she stopped attempting things without checking with me first.
Can I shower now?
Should I lie down?
Does it look worse today?
Each question made her smaller. Each answer made me necessary.
Her body began anticipating permission too.
When I told her to rest, her muscles loosened immediately, relief flooding her frame in a way that looked almost obscene. When I told her to stay still, she went slack, compliant, breath evening out like she'd been waiting for the order.
One evening, while she lay on the couch, she asked me something unexpected.
"Do you think it knows you?" she asked.
I didn't pretend not to understand.
"It reacts differently when you're close," she continued. "It settles. Like it recognizes you."
I sat beside her.
Her abdomen shifted subtly toward me. Not consciously. Not visibly enough to be dramatic. Just enough to register.
"Bodies respond to stability," I said. "You associate me with calm."
She closed her eyes.
"I don't think I'm in charge anymore," she said. "I think I just… host."
The word landed heavy between us.
Host.
I placed my hand where the movement was strongest now. Lower. Firmer. My palm met resistance again, more pronounced this time. Not pushing. Holding.
She whimpered softly.
"It doesn't like being touched," she said.
"It doesn't know me yet," I replied.
Her breath hitched, then slowed.
That night, she didn't dream.
At least, she didn't move the way people do when they dream. No twitching. No shifting. She lay perfectly still, breathing shallowly around something that seemed to dictate the rhythm now.
In the early hours of the morning, her body adjusted itself without waking her.
Her spine curved incrementally. Her hips rotated slightly. Her abdomen settled into a shape that looked less temporary.
By the time the sun came up, she looked… resolved.
When she woke, she didn't stretch.
She simply opened her eyes and waited.
"For what?" I asked.
She blinked slowly. Once.
"For it to finish deciding," she said.
And somewhere beneath her skin, something completed a movement it had been practicing for days.
She exhaled in relief.
Not because it was over.
But because it had chosen.