{"id":37621,"date":"2025-10-22T18:20:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T22:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/?p=37621"},"modified":"2025-10-22T18:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T22:20:26","slug":"unbreakable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2025\/10\/22\/unbreakable\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbreakable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The garden is more peaceful than you expected, with gravel paths lined with brightly colored flowers. Hummingbirds and butterflies dance among the blossoms. A narrow creek burbles, passing in and out of dappled sunlight. Squirrels leap from tree to tree and chase each other around the statues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You pause to watch, and when you return to the trail, she\u2019s there, watching you. A doubt you never admit to feeling crawls across your spine, but it\u2019s too late. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her deep brown eyes gaze into yours, and your face loses all sensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t scream,\u00a0
or cry,\u00a0
or sing.
<\/em>You can\u2019t even laugh.
You remember laughing, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her eyes are sad and lonely. They see you. They understand you. Numbness paralyzes your limbs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t move,
or jump,\u00a0
or run.
<\/em>You can\u2019t even dance.
But then, dancing wasn’t ever your thing, was it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaze still locked with yours, she looks like she’s about to cry. Petrification creeks through your body, turning flesh to stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are immune to the outside world.
Insults no longer touch you,\u00a0
or disappointment,
or grief.<\/em>
They never have, have they?\u00a0
You\u2019ve always been the strong one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, you\u2019re stronger still.
Unbreakable.
Unshakeable.<\/em>
A person of stone can weather any storm, carry any burden.
Reliable.
Dependable.<\/em>
What else could you want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She blinks away a tear and, in that moment, panic flares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emotions you’ve long forgotten splash against stone in a desperate plea for release.
Longing,
Regret,
Love.<\/em>
It’s too late.
You are a statue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medusa gives you a smile that is both sad and understanding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You wonder. If you hadn\u2019t spent a lifetime hardening your skin, would you have become something else? Could you, maybe, have turned into a butterfly? Or a flower?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Garden<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Halloween story to delight and petrify. Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-uncategorized","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/leu-gardens-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-9MN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37621"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37632,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37621\/revisions\/37632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}