Gary noticed the difference when nothing demanded his attention.

No pain. No crisis. No urgent decision hovering over him like a threat. Just time — unstructured and oddly revealing.

He found himself doing a quiet inventory of the last few months, not in a dramatic way, but in fragments. The night the tooth first became impossible to ignore. The strange relief of finally sitting in a dentist’s chair. The awkward conversations that followed. The choices that had felt small at the time and massive in retrospect.

He realised he’d stopped reacting.

That alone felt significant.

Gary walked through his flat slowly, tidying without urgency. He opened windows, let fresh air in, and noticed how different the space felt now that he wasn’t pacing it in discomfort or anxiety. This wasn’t a recovery phase anymore. It was just… life.

The thought unsettled him slightly.

Without the tooth to organise everything around, Gary had to confront a quieter question: what did he do when things weren’t on fire?

He sat on the edge of the bed and laughed softly at himself. He’d always assumed calm would feel boring or empty. Instead, it felt like standing on solid ground after weeks at sea — unfamiliar, but reassuring.

This was the moment where stories usually rushed to a conclusion. Where something happened.

Nothing did.

And that was the point.

Gary wasn’t waiting anymore. He wasn’t bracing. He was choosing.

What came next wouldn’t be accidental. Whether the ending was triumphant, quiet, lonely, or absurd, it would be the result of how he’d handled what came before.

That knowledge settled in comfortably.

Gary stood up, stretched his jaw without thinking, and moved forward.

Let events resolve naturally → Page 102

Act deliberately and define your own ending → Page 103