I sit on the couch in our apartment, staring at a photograph of my Rebel Girl. My hand trembles, but I don't look away. The thin frame digs into my fingers, its sharp edges reminding me that even memories can cause pain. But I don't let go. I can't. Because in that picture — in her daring gaze, in the slight curve of her lips, in the mess of her hair blowing in the wind that day — there is everything I have left.
The last time I saw her in person was more than three years ago. Three long, painfully slow years without her voice, which could sound like a challenge or a lullaby. Without her gaze, which pierced straight through me as if it knew all my weaknesses, yet still accepted me. Without that fire in her eyes, capable of warming even the coldest evenings — not only because of the weather, but because of the mood, when the whole world seemed alien and gray.
The apartment remains almost the same as when she closed the door behind her. I still hear that sound — the quiet click of the lock, like a final verdict. Only the air has grown heavier, denser, like fog before a storm. As if the walls have absorbed all my words spoken into emptiness, all the screams no one heard, and the silence that pounds in my ears.
On the table, covered in a thin layer of dust, her things still lie — old, worn little trinkets I once found in a box she sent me back then. Her hair clip, the one she always lost, and an old T-shirt, too big for her, but one she loved to wear, wrapping herself in it like a cocoon. I can't bring myself to throw them away. I can't. It would feel like betraying her memory, letting go of the last remnants of her presence. Just like the pillow, which still faintly carries her scent — light, warm, familiar. Every time I press my cheek against it, I can almost hear her breath beside me.
The curtains she once chose with a smile, dancing around the room with a catalog in her hands, now seem faded with time — or maybe with my loneliness. They no longer let the light in, but rather lock it outside, leaving the room in half-shadow, where memory doesn't die but lives its own life, confusing the present with the past.
My heart clenches with every passing minute. It doesn't beat, it creaks, like an old floor underfoot. This apartment, once filled with laughter and the bright colors of our life, now feels like a cage. A space where I relive my loss over and over again. I miss her as if every cell of my body is calling her name. But even the echo doesn't answer.
I shouldn't have left back then. That was a mistake I pay for every day. I should have stayed, should have found the strength to throw Vlad out, no matter how hard it would have been, and stood between her and her pain. I should have fought. For her, for us. Yelled, begged, held her hand and never let go, even if she tried to break free. Done everything to make her stay. To keep her from slamming that door — the very one that became the final border between the past, where we were together, and the present, where only I remain. Alone.
But nothing can be changed anymore. Seconds have turned into years, and each one cuts inside like a blade. Time doesn't heal — it only reminds me how irretrievably everything is lost.
After she left, my life split into "before" and "after," like glass shattering on tile. With a crack, without a chance to glue it back together, without a chance to return to its former shape. Everything that had been vivid and real — her laughter, our morning talks, her touch, her eyes full of defiance and warmth — crumbled into dust, invisible but burning my lungs with every breath. The world loses its colors, becomes flat, scorched, like an old photograph where every shade has faded to gray. It loses its taste, its scent, its music. I don't live anymore — I exist. Like the shadow of a man, like the echo of my former self.
My life after her is like absolute darkness. Dense, viscous, sticky, like swamp sludge. Without a single glimmer of light, without hope. I wander through a deserted forest with my eyes blindfolded, helpless, tired, clinging to cold trees as if to the last remnants of meaning. They are like my days — identical, soulless, silent. And every step echoes in my chest with a dull, gnawing pain, like hunger, like the absence of something vital. My heart beats slowly, heavily, lazily, as if it too, tired of loneliness, finds no reason to go on. It doesn't pulse with life — it just ticks, like an old clock forgotten in an empty room.
I try not to drown in that darkness, choking on its density. I hold on to every little thing, every fragment of the past where she is still beside me. Her voice in my head rings clearly, especially in silence, when the city goes still and only I remain — with her ghost. I search for her in the smell of her favorite shampoo, accidentally caught on some stranger in the street. In the belongings she left behind, covered in dust but still seeming alive, warm. In the fragments of memories that replay in my mind again and again, like a worn-out record, crackling but stubbornly playing. All of this pulls me forward, toward the light. A light that isn't somewhere out there — but in her. In my Katrin. In her smile, in her laughter, in her voice that once called me to live.
I was blinded by hope. Foolish, desperate, stubborn, like a child who believes that his mother will return, even if she is already gone. Hope that all is not yet lost. That if I keep searching, keep believing — through pain, through tears — then for at least one brief moment I could see her again. Not in a photograph. Not in memory. But beside me. Alive. To feel her presence, like once before: I would hug her, squeeze her tight until trembling, breathe in that familiar scent of her skin, bury my face in her hair, let my fingers slide along the curve of her back… And finally, say what I never had the time to say then. That I would never let her go again. That she is — my home. My light. My infinity. I clung to this thought like to a saving straw because everything else was already drowning inside me.
But days turned into other days, dim, indistinguishable, like frames in a poorly edited film, where I was not the hero but a detached observer. Everything became the same — work, studies, empty conversations, strained smiles, strange faces that meant nothing and left no trace. I woke up only to lose myself again in this endless mechanical cycle. I did not know when it was morning, when evening — the darkness inside was deeper than any night. Time lost its shape. I lived on autopilot, like a broken mechanism, but every day, every moment felt like an abyss, like a cold, empty well with no way out and no echo to be heard.
I tried to run from thoughts of her. Threw myself into tasks, into noise, into attempts to distract myself. But it was like running in circles, like fighting with my own reflection in the mirror — you can avert your eyes, but you won't disappear. Wherever I went — she was everywhere. In the wind, in a song on the radio, in the smell of coffee she loved. In the faces of passersby, in dreams, in the pauses between words. She was inside me. And perhaps forever.
The first almost year was hell. Absolute. Like a night shadow that leaves not a single gap for light. I woke with pain and fell asleep with it too, like with a constant companion who never lets go. Every street in this city breathed her scent, the echo of her steps. Every café where we once sat reminded me of her laughter, her jokes. And all of it came alive again, painfully reminding me that she was no longer there. Even advertising posters on the corners of the streets became signs of her presence — how she would look at them, how she would shake her head, laughing at their silliness.
Her favorite music could suddenly play in my headphones, and my chest would tighten so much that I couldn't breathe, as if someone had squeezed my heart in their fist and wouldn't let go. I knew every song of hers, every chord — until my fingers trembled, until my throat hurt. These melodies were not just tracks from a playlist; they were her reflection. When they played, everything inside me seemed to freeze. The world stopped. The air became heavy, and I — icy, empty, as if my heart had turned into a piece of glass, ready to shatter.