Lost in crowd

The coffee shop was a a blur of noise and steam, the kind of place where a hundred conversations were happening at once, and none of them truly mattered. Leo sat across from his old friend, Mark, the forced smile on his face feeling like a heavy mask. He had come here with a purpose, a small, terrifying act of vulnerability he had decided to attempt. He was tired of the "I'm fine" lies.

He waited for a pause in Mark's monologue about a recent work promotion. “Mark,” he said, his voice softer than he intended. “Can I be honest for a second?”

Mark nodded, still looking over Leo's shoulder at someone he knew. “Sure, what’s up?”

“I’ve been… in a really bad place,” Leo said, his throat tightening. “The depression is back. It’s been… hard. I’m sorry if I’ve been distant. I’m just trying to get through it.”

He watched the transaction play out on Mark’s face. The momentary flicker of concern, the quick assessment, and then the subtle shift. Mark’s eyes hardened slightly. “Yeah, man, I get it. We all have our battles. The grind is real. You just have to push through it, you know? My last quarter was brutal. Everyone’s got something.”

And that was it. The pain, the years of silent struggle, the profound courage it had taken to speak those words aloud—it was all reduced to a generic platitude. It wasn’t a denial; it was worse. It was a dismissal. He felt it physically, a deep, hollow ache in his chest. Mark’s words were a wall, a polite way of saying, I can’t deal with this. I don't have time for this.

Leo wanted to apologize. He wanted to take it back, to say it was just a joke, a passing thought. To make Mark comfortable again. But for the first time, he didn't. He looked at his friend, really looked at him, and saw the complete absence of a connection, the empty chair where empathy should have been. Mark wasn't a bad person; he was just a person in a transactional world, and Leo’s pain was a currency he didn’t know how to accept.

He finished his coffee in silence, the bustling cafe now deafening. He had offered a genuine part of himself, and it had been rejected. But as he walked home alone, he felt a strange, quiet sense of peace. He hadn't gotten what he wanted—understanding, a listening ear—but he had done something far more important. He had told the truth. He had acknowledged his own suffering without a single demand. He had validated himself. The pain was still there, but it was no longer a secret. It was a part of him, a part he no longer had to hide just to make others comfortable. In a world that didn’t care to listen, he had, for a moment, found the strength to speak.