It's strange, how the world keeps moving. Even stranger, how I've started moving with it.
I didn't notice it at first. It began in small ways— like the way my hands reached for my shoes without thinking when someone asked if I wanted to go outside. Months ago, I would've said no, because being out there meant facing a world that didn't have you in it. Now, I still say no sometimes, but the no feels weaker. Less certain.
I think that's how breathing works after someone like you leaves — it comes back in hesitant, uneven bursts. Not like before. Not smooth, not easy. More like my chest has forgotten the rhythm and I'm just hoping no one notices how hard I'm trying.
The first time I laughed— really laughed —since you left, it scared me. It was over something stupid, some inside joke I shared with a friend years ago. For a moment, I forgot about you. It lasted maybe two seconds. Then the guilt hit, like I'd betrayed you somehow, like letting air in meant letting you out. I couldn't explain it to anyone. They would've told me it's normal, that healing is supposed to happen. But the word healing feels wrong, because I'm not sure I want to be healed from you. I don't want to.
I still catch myself thinking about how your voice sounded at night. Or the way you'd pause before replying when you were pretending not to smile. Those aren't just memories— they're little landmines buried in my days. Sometimes I step on one without warning.
But then there are hours when I don't think of you at all. That's new.
And I hate it.
I hate that I can go through an afternoon without your name showing up in my mind like a headline. I hate that my thoughts are learning to move around you instead of through you. Even if just once in every while. It feels like watching a photograph fade in slow motion, each detail vanishing before I'm ready to let it go.
Last night, I walked past the place where we used to talk for hours. The air smelled like rain, and the streetlights were just beginning to hum awake. I slowed down, waiting for the ache to hit. It did — but softer this time. Almost like a shadow of the pain I used to feel.
That scared me more than the sharp pain ever did. Because at least the sharpness meant you were still here in some way.
It's a cruel thing— realizing that even grief can't hold you forever.
I've been doing little things again. Cooking for myself. Rearranging my desk. Picking up books I left unfinished when you were still here. Not because I want to move on, but because my hands need something to do. If I sit too still, I feel the weight of your absence pressing down on my shoulders until I can't breathe.
The other day, someone asked if I was doing better. I lied and said yes. Not because I'm close to fine, but because I'm tired of explaining how I can wake up, go to work, eat dinner, and still feel like I'm waiting for you.
There's this strange in-between place I'm stuck in. I'm not where I was— that raw, drowning stage where every thought was you and every breath felt like a betrayal. But I'm not past it either. I live in the middle now, where you're gone, but not gone enough.
Sometimes I wonder if you've already learned how to breathe without me. I think about you walking down some different street, in some different city, maybe with someone else's voice in your ear. I don't know if that thought hurts more than the idea of you simply not thinking about me at all.
I've heard people say that missing someone gets easier. I don't know if that's true. Maybe it just changes shape. Maybe it becomes less of a wound and more of a scar— a part of you that doesn't bleed anymore but still itches when the weather changes.
And right now, I think the weather's changing.
I'm not ready for what comes next. Not ready to let the sharp edges smooth out. Not ready to wake up one day and realize the weight I've been carrying is lighter, because lighter means less of you.
But here I am, still breathing. Not well, not easily, but breathing all the same.
The city is different at night when you're walking alone. I notice things now that I never did before — like the way the neon signs flicker on a beat of their own, or how the sound of passing cars fades quicker than it used to. Maybe I'm just paying attention because I'm not filling the silence with your voice anymore.
I stop by the small café where I used to pass by. It's closed, the chairs flipped upside down on tables, the windows reflecting a version of me that looks tired but alive. I stand there longer than I should, wondering if you'd even recognize me now. Not because I've changed so much, but because maybe you've forgotten the small details— like the way my hands twitch when I'm restless or how I always glance twice before crossing the street.
I head home eventually. The air is cool, the kind that sinks into your skin but not deep enough to hurt. It feels… okay.
When I get to my room, I don't write about you tonight. Not directly, anyway. I write about the way shadows stretch across the floor when the streetlight outside flickers. I write about how a half-empty glass of water looks heavier than a full one. I write about breathing, and how it feels like something I'm still learning.
And for a moment, I forget the ache. Just for a moment.
I don't know if that's progress or loss.
Maybe it's both.
And yet, some part of me refuses to sit still.
I find myself talking to her again, out loud this time. My voice sounds strange in the empty air. I tell her something stupid I read earlier — about how, statistically, the person you think of before you sleep is either the one you love or the one you fear losing the most. And then I laugh a little, because in my case, it's both.
There's no answer, of course.
Then the thoughts lingers again, stretching itself thin, weaving into the silence until I can't tell if it's my mind repeating it or the walls breathing it back to me. My chest tightens the longer I sit in it. There's a fine line between remembering and drowning — and I'm not sure which side I'm on anymore.
I imagine her walking away again, the way she did that day. Only this time, she doesn't fade into the crowd. She turns a corner and simply… vanishes. No sound of her footsteps, no faint trace of perfume hanging in the air. Just a hollow where she used to be.
The kind of emptiness that feels like it's still moving, still pulling, even when there's nothing left to take.
I press my palms into my face, hard enough to see stars in the dark. Maybe I'm trying to crush the thoughts out of my skull. Maybe I'm hoping that when I open my eyes, I'll be somewhere else — a place where she's still here, where I don't have to keep digging through memories like they're scraps of light at the bottom of a well.
But the room stays the same. The rain stays the same. And I stay the same — stuck between wanting to hold on until my hands bleed, and wanting to let go before there's nothing left of me to save.
Somewhere, between the next breath and the one after, I realize the most terrifying thing:
If this keeps going.… one day, I won't even remember what her voice sounded like.