Roxzie's Own 'What If'

The fluorescent lights of the library hummed a low, insistent tune, a stark contrast to the restless rhythm drumming against Roxzie’s ribs. She traced the worn spine of a textbook, the embossed title blurring into insignificance. Her friends, Cyenrhi, Jhrean, and Loreanzce, were a constellation of familiar anxieties, their orbits pulling her in a hundred different directions. Cyenrhi, lost in the labyrinth of her mind, a delicate moth drawn to the flame of every ‘what if.’ Jhrean, a master of veiled intentions, his laughter a silken thread that could both soothe and ensnare. Loreanzce, the quiet artist, his gaze capturing the unspoken, his sketchbook a silent testament to their collective unease.

Roxzie, the pragmatist, the anchor, the one who always had an answer, a plan, a steady hand. Or so she’d always believed. But lately, the steady hand felt less like a guide and more like a cage. The ‘what if’s’ that swirled around her friends, the shared dreams, the unsettling premonitions – they were a storm she’d been so focused on weathering for them, she’d failed to notice the tempest brewing within her own soul.

She watched Jhrean from across the table, his brow furrowed in concentration as he explained something to Cyenrhi, his hand resting a beat too long on hers. A familiar pang, sharp and unwelcome, twisted in Roxzie’s gut. It wasn’t jealousy, not exactly. It was… a recognition. A whisper of a question she’d been too afraid to ask herself. What if?