EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Former Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

The Cry I Could Not Hide

December 11, 2025—Middletown Springs, Vermont (Home)
I woke this morning with that familiar heaviness in my chest, the kind that feels like it has its own pulse, its own quiet insistence that today was not going to be just another day at the farm. It was one of those days that slips under the door and settles into the room before you even realize it has arrived.

Brian came by with Amanda and their little one—this unexpected trio has slowly become part of my life here in Vermont. He started out as just the contractor I hired to help fix the messes left behind by someone else, but he showed up with honesty, a good heart, and none of the excuses others brought me over the years. Somewhere along the line, he became a friend. His girlfriend, Amanda, brought that steady, grounding presence that mothers seem to carry without thinking about it, and their little one toddled around like she owned the place, taking inventory of my house with absolute confidence. It softened the afternoon more than I expected.

I have been coming apart lately. Quietly. Privately. With the same quiet introspection I once used on rescue calls—only now the incident I am managing is my feelings, and I am not exactly holding it together. My mind keeps taking the smallest problems, the kind that should barely register, and inflates them into something far larger than any incident I ever commanded.

So when they were here—when the weight of the last few weeks finally pressed too hard—I did something I never do. I went into the shower, curled up in the corner like some wounded animal, and I cried. Not the quiet kind. The shaking, forehead-against-shower-tile kind. The kind that leaves you gasping in pieces you are not entirely sure how to put back.

And they saw me. I never cry in front of anyone. Ever. That has been my rule for decades—built at first out of necessity, pride, and later on whatever twisted survival lessons I picked up along the way. But unabashedly bawling your eyes out in front of a close friend? That is different. Some truths don't need to be spoken—they just need to be acknowledged. That is the whole point of friendship. You stop pretending you have it handled and let someone sit quietly inside the wreckage with you.

Brian stayed nearby, not hovering, not fixing, not judging—just present. Amanda gave me this small, understanding nod, like she recognized the terrain and knew that interrupting it would have been the cruelest thing. I caught a glimpse of their daughter playing with my fire truck toys on my bedroom floor, and somehow that made everything feel human. Less like falling apart, more like releasing something that had been waiting too long to break.

I am still not okay. Not yet. But Amelia and I are not as alone as I once thought. And maybe that matters more than anything.