Rain hit the window. A steady tap. Like a clock neither of them could reset.
She was in the bathroom. Door cracked. Light spilled out in a yellow wedge across the beige carpet. The sound of water running. A splash.
He sat in the chair. Staring at his own reflection in the dark TV screen. A ghost in the glass. Gray hair at his temples. Deep lines from his nose to his mouth. Tracks left by a lifetime of frowns.
She came out. Face bare. Hair down. It was thinner than he remembered. Softer. She'd taken off the stiff blouse. Wore a plain t-shirt. It hung loose. She looked smaller. Deflated.
She caught him looking. Stopped. "What."
"Nothing."
She walked to the window. Stood beside him. But not close. Looked at his reflection too. At hers beside it.
Two ghosts. In a dark screen. Older. Worn.
"We got old," she said. Simple. A fact.
"Yeah."
She turned from the window. Looked at him direct. In the flesh. Her eyes traced the landscape of his face. The rough stubble. The permanent tiredness etched around his eyes. "You look like your father."
The words were a slap. He flinched. "Don't."
"It's true." No cruelty in her voice. Just observation. "Around the mouth. The way you hold your jaw. Tight."
He looked at her. Really looked. Past the memory. Saw the woman. The fine web of lines at the corners of her eyes. From squinting at screens. Or maybe from fake smiling. A slight sag under her chin. The skin of her neck softer. A map of time.
"You look like your mother," he said. Quiet.
She didn't flinch. Nodded. "I know."
That was the grief. Not for each other. For the kids they were. Those smooth-faced believers. With their whole, unwritten lives ahead. They were gone. Replaced by these weathered strangers. Carrying the ghosts of their parents in their own faces.
He remembered her skin on the rooftop. Cold and smooth under his thumb. Like porcelain.
Now it looked lived-in. A real face. With history written in pores and lines.
He remembered his own hands. Young. Scraped from skateboarding. But smooth.
Now they were thick. Veined. A laborer's hands. A driver's hands.
She reached out. Slow. Hesitant. Her fingers brushed his temple. Where the gray was coming in. Her touch was warm. Dry. A stranger's touch.
He didn't move.
"Your hair was so black," she whispered. "Like ink."
"Yours was like night." His voice was rough. "Shiny."
She let her hand fall. "It's just hair now."
The comparison was a silent scream. It wasn't about who was better. It was about what was lost. The raw material of youth. The unmarked canvas.
They weren't those people anymore. They were archives. Walking museums of every choice. Every disappointment. Every quiet year. It was all there. In the slope of a shoulder. In the set of a mouth. In the wary look in eyes that had seen too much beige.
She hugged herself. Looked down at her own body. At the t-shirt. At the shape of a woman in her forties. Not old. Not young. Just… settled. "I thought I'd feel more," she said to the floor. "Seeing you. I thought it would be a lightning bolt. Or a knife."
"What is it?"
She looked up. Met his eyes. Her own were clear. Empty. "It's a quiet room. With a man I used to know. Who used to be a boy."
He nodded. Felt the same hollow truth. "The boy is gone."
"The girl is gone."
The rain kept tapping. A useless rhythm.
The grief wasn't for the love they lost. It was for the people they lost. The two kids on the photo. They were the real ghosts. And seeing each other now was the final proof. The before and after. Side by side in a silent hotel room.
No amount of mint. No old song. Could bring those kids back.
They were just these two people. With separate lives. Separate aches. Sharing a quiet moment of mourning for their own vanished selves.
The comparison was complete. And it was a funeral.