Ladder | Jacobs

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, not looking at him.

Maya smiled. It was her real smile, the one she’d used when showing him a crayon drawing of a dragon. “Then the ladder collapses. Every rung falls. And because you carried all that weight—every sorry, every memory, every stupid fight—the In-Between has to give me back. But you have to mean it. You can’t be climbing to save me. You have to climb because you finally understand that love isn’t about keeping someone close. It’s about building the thing that lets them go.” Jacobs Ladder

The ladder never reappeared. But sometimes, on nights when Leo can’t sleep, he’ll hear a faint creak above his bed—like a footstep on a wooden rung that isn’t there. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said,

“If you climb down,” Maya said, “you go home. I stay here forever, but you stop hurting. That’s the mercy option.” “Then the ladder collapses

The Ascent of Broken Things