A Note from the Author
A LITTLE LESS ROOM
A Short Story
by Paul Wolfe
A Note from the Author
This story is for anyone who has ever made themselves smaller for someone else.
For anyone who has learned to choose their words carefully.
To stay quiet when they wanted to speak.
To apologize just to keep the peace.
To walk into a room and immediately wonder what version of someone they were going to get that day.
Abuse does not always leave a bruise.
Sometimes it looks like fear.
Sometimes it sounds like an apology you never should have had to make.
Sometimes it is learning which floorboards creak, which subjects to avoid, which expressions might start an argument, and how quickly you can make yourself disappear when the air in a room begins to change.
And sometimes, without realizing it, you begin giving away pieces of yourself just to make room for someone else.
A little confidence.
A little independence.
A little happiness.
A little less room.
Until one day, you look around and realize you barely recognize the life you are standing in.
That is what this story is about.
Not a house with moving walls.
Not really.
It is about the invisible ways people can become trapped inside places that are supposed to make them feel safe.
It is also about the people who stay.
It can be easy to look from the outside and ask why someone does not simply leave. But fear is complicated. Love is complicated. Control is complicated. And sometimes the walls have been closing in for so long that a person forgets there was ever a world outside of them.
If there is one thing I hope you take away from this story, it is this:
You should never have to disappear to be loved.
You deserve to take up space.
You deserve to have a voice.
You deserve to say no without being afraid of what comes next.
And you should never have to apologize for another person’s cruelty.
Leaving may not make every wound disappear.
Speaking may not make every wall move back.
Healing may take time.
But sometimes the first step is realizing that the walls were never supposed to be that close in the first place.
And sometimes freedom begins with refusing to give away...
A Little Less Room.
— Paul Wolfe
