The lump was little, scarcely recognizable at to begin with. A slight inconvenience, a unusual totality beneath the skin that felt out of put. It wasn't torment, not precisely, but the kind of thing that chews at your considerations the minute you take note it. Repulsive. That's the word. Not life-altering, not terrifying—at slightest, not yet—just unsavory.
You press your fingers to it, attempting to map its boundaries, attempting to persuade yourself it's nothing. Possibly it's fair a muscle hitch, something that will go absent on its possess. But the more you touch it, the more genuine it feels, and with that reality comes a whisper of fear. What in case it doesn't go absent? What on the off chance that it's something more awful?
It's interesting how something so little can take up so much space in your intellect. You replay each choice, each minute where you might've disregarded a sign or pushed your body as well distant. Was this continuously here? Did I miss it? The questions do not halt, and not one or the other does the lump—it's there, a consistent update that the body isn't continuously a secure and quiet accomplice.
For presently, you hold up. You tell yourself you'll get it checked, that it's likely nothing, but that annoying discomfort—the kind that feels more profound than skin—remains. It's not the knot itself that's so intolerable. It's the not knowing, the calm plausibility that this little, unwelcome nearness may well be the begin of something greater. Something you're not prepared to confront.