There are two kinds of silence in life.
The first is warm — the kind that hums beneath old vinyls, lingers after laughter, or wraps around you like a blanket when your mom hums in the kitchen. That kind of silence is soft.
The second kind feels like abandonment.
It hits your chest, sharp and hollow, and stretches into the corners of your mind until you're convinced you must've imagined everything that made noise before it.
That's the silence Amira Carter had been living in for the past ten days.
Ten long, echoing days since Noah stopped answering her messages.
She hadn't told anyone, not even her mom — who would've gone full Harlem-mom mode and flown to London in a heartbeat — or her dad, who would've pulled out his passport and a pipe wrench like he was going to war. She definitely didn't tell her best friend, Anaya, who'd always said Noah gave her "future heartbreak vibes."
Because how could she explain it? That the man she was planning to move across the world for — the man who once said "every night without you feels like an unfinished song" — had simply vanished?
No fights. No warning. Just silence.
And so, Amira sat in her bedroom in Brooklyn with her chin on her knees, her phone screen cracked and cold beside her, and told herself the same thing over and over.
It has to be a mistake.
Noah Langston didn't just ghost people. He was the guy who sent flowers for no reason. Who made her playlists labeled "For When You're Mad at Me" and "For When I Miss Your Laugh." The guy who once cried watching The Notebook and claimed he didn't.
He loved her.
Didn't he?
Amira blinked at the clock on her wall. 2:11 a.m. Another night she couldn't sleep.
She glanced at her suitcase sitting near the door. It was already packed — two weeks ago, actually. She was supposed to fly out in three more weeks and move in with him permanently. But now…
She stood.
Quietly, like a thief in her own house, she walked to her closet and pulled out a hoodie, slid on some jeans, and grabbed her passport. The idea hit her with terrifying clarity:
If he won't come to me, I'll go to him.
---
The ticket was expensive. Her hands trembled slightly as she pressed purchase. But as the boarding pass loaded on her screen, a strange calm settled over her.
This was it. No more waiting. No more crying to old Billie Holiday records at midnight. No more checking her phone every two minutes like a fool.
She was flying to London.
And Noah would have to give her answers — one way or another.
---
The JFK terminal was nearly empty when she arrived at 5:30 a.m. Her flight didn't leave until seven, but she couldn't sit at home another minute. Every hallway echoed with her boots. Every announcement that rang overhead reminded her this was real.
She boarded the plane with a carry-on and two suitcases — all filled with pieces of her heart, hope, and backup eyeliner.
The flight was long. Seven hours and twenty-six minutes.
And she couldn't sleep.
Instead, she stared at the digital map in front of her seat as the little plane crossed the Atlantic, wondering if it was leading her toward closure or collapse.
---
London was grey when she landed — not the romantic kind of grey you see in movies, but the kind that soaks into your socks and makes the air smell like wet metal.
She didn't care.
She climbed into a cab, gave the driver the address, and stared out at the mist-covered skyline like she was entering a battlefield.
Noah's apartment was in Kensington — high-end, elite, luxury dripping from the windows. The kind of place where the lobby smelled like eucalyptus and no one carried their own groceries.
As she wheeled her suitcases into the marble entrance, the doorman greeted her with a polite smile.
"Visiting Mr. Langston?" he asked.
She nodded, her stomach knotting. "Yes. Amira Carter."
He typed something into a tablet, then nodded. "Go on up."
The elevator was too quiet. She could hear her own heartbeat echoing in her ears. By the time it dinged on the 23rd floor, she could barely keep her hands from shaking.
Apartment 23A.
She rang the doorbell.
Once.
Twice.
Five times.
Nothing.
She knocked. "Noah? It's me."
She waited.
Still nothing.
Her chest tightened. She tried texting him again.
> I'm in London. I'm outside your apartment. Please open the door.
The message sent. No read receipt. No response.
Her fingers were ice-cold.
This couldn't be happening.
She turned to leave, tears threatening to spill, when she heard a voice behind her.
"Amira?"
She spun around.
It was Daniel.
One of Noah's friends — the quiet one with the nervous smile and guilty eyes. He was carrying groceries and looked like he'd just seen a ghost.
"Daniel," she breathed. "Oh, thank God. Is he okay? Is Noah okay?"
Daniel's face contorted uncomfortably. "He's… at a bar. Just a few blocks from here."
"A bar?"
Daniel glanced away. "Yeah. The Harrow & Hound. He hangs out there most nights now."
Amira stared at him. "He knew I was coming. I told him in my messages."
Daniel didn't reply. Just looked ashamed.
"Thanks," she muttered, dragging her bags again. Her body felt heavy. Her heart felt heavier.
She walked.
Through the mist. Through the ache. Through the disbelief pooling in her chest like stormwater.
She found the bar — dimly lit, rustic, and crowded.
She stepped inside with her suitcases clattering behind her. The music was soft. Jazz — ironically. Like a twisted joke from the universe.
She spotted him.
Noah.
Sitting in a booth. Laughing.
With another girl.
He hadn't seen her yet.
Noah sat with his back to the bar entrance, angled slightly toward the girl beside him — a brunette with skin like porcelain and lips painted fire-red. Her laugh was high-pitched and flirty, the kind of sound that used to make Amira's stomach twist with jealousy. But now, it barely registered.
Everything was quiet.
Amira's ears buzzed. Her eyes refused to blink. Her breath stalled in her lungs.
Please let me be wrong. Please let that not be him.
But when he reached for the girl's hand and brushed his lips against her fingers the way he once did to Amira during late dinners in Brooklyn, her hope finally broke.
It was him.
Noah Langston.
The man who made her believe love was permanent.
The man who ghosted her — now entertaining someone else while she dragged her life behind her like luggage.
She didn't plan what she did next. She didn't think. She just walked.
Across the bar.
Past tables of clinking glasses and couples whispering secrets.
Right up to the booth.
And said, "Hey, Noah."
Noah turned, halfway through a laugh — and then froze.
The blood drained from his face. His glass slipped slightly in his hand.
"Amira?"
The girl next to him looked confused, then uncomfortable. She shifted closer to the wall, away from Amira.
Amira stood firm, her bags beside her, soaked from the outside drizzle. Her hair was frizzy from the rain, her lips chapped, her eyes tired — but her posture was steel.
"You stopped answering me," she said. Her voice didn't shake. "You stopped calling. You disappeared."
Noah's mouth opened, then closed. "I… didn't think you'd actually come."
"You invited me to live with you," she snapped, louder than she meant to. A few heads turned. "What part of that sounded optional?"
The other girl slid out of the booth, clearly uncomfortable. She didn't say a word — just gave Noah a glare and disappeared toward the back of the bar.
Now it was just the two of them — and the eyes of the room.
"Noah," Amira said again, softer now. "What happened?"
Noah sighed. He leaned back, rubbing his face. "It's not working, Mira. The distance. The expectations. I just… I've moved on."
Amira blinked. "You moved on."
He nodded slowly, like he was trying to convince himself. "It wasn't easy. But it was necessary."
"You couldn't text that?"
"I didn't know how to say it," he admitted, looking genuinely guilty. "I kept putting it off. And then it got… messy."
"Messy?" Her voice cracked — only slightly, but it shattered something in her chest. "You let me buy a plane ticket. You let me think we were still okay."
People were watching. Whispers carried.
Noah stood up now, too, towering slightly over her. "I'm sorry. But I didn't ask you to come."
That did it.
She stepped back like he'd slapped her. "You didn't ask me to come, but you asked me to build a life with you."
"I was confused."
"No," she whispered. "You were a coward."
The bar was silent now. Even the music had stopped.
Amira turned around slowly, lifted her suitcases, and walked out into the rain without another word.
She didn't stop walking.
Not when the rain soaked her shirt.
Not when her boots filled with water.
Not even when she passed the tube station where she could've just curled up on a bench and cried for an hour.
She didn't stop until she saw the red-bricked building that looked so familiar she wanted to collapse in front of it.
Her sister's apartment.
---
Kiana Carter had moved to London two years ago for work. She was the older sister — by ten years — stylish, fierce, and known for hosting wine nights with jazz music and painfully honest conversations.
Amira remembered what Kiana once told her when she visited:
"Spare key's always behind the left window box. Tucked under the fake basil plant."
She found it.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled the plastic pot aside, revealing the silver key, slightly rusted from rain.
She slipped it into the lock, opened the door, and finally let her tears fall.
---
Kiana's apartment smelled like lavender and old coffee. It was warm, quiet, and lived-in — the exact opposite of Noah's sterile, chrome-washed space.
Amira left her bags by the entrance and made her way to the couch, peeling off her soaked jacket and collapsing like her bones couldn't hold her anymore.
She didn't cry loudly.
The tears came slowly, exhaustedly. A silent stream of disappointment that soaked into the pillow beneath her cheek.
She scrolled through her phone once, staring at the last message she'd sent.
> I'm outside. Please open the door.
Still unread.
She should've known.
Still, knowing didn't dull the ache. Knowing didn't change the fact that she had uprooted her life for a man who couldn't even break up with her to her face — only did it when caught.
The ache bloomed into rage. Then sorrow. Then nothing.
She fell asleep like that — fully dressed, shoes on, fingers still curled around her phone.
---
She woke up to sunlight slipping through half-open curtains. The ache was still there, but dulled. Like a bruise that had finally stopped bleeding.
Amira sat up, stretched, and looked around the apartment.
It was quiet.
London was quiet.
And for the first time in days, the silence didn't feel like abandonment.
It felt like opportunity.
She got up, grabbed her notebook from one of the suitcases, and scribbled down the only thought that made sense:
> You can read a book twice… but you can't change the ending.
She underlined it.
Then she flipped to a blank page and wrote one more line beneath it.
> But you can write a new story.