The Day We Forgot to Say Goodbye

I still remember the coffee we never drank.
That morning had been unusually cold for August. Clouds hung low and heavy like wet blankets over the city, and people rushed down the streets as if they could outrun the weight in the air. You stood by the window, watching the rain without really seeing it. I stood in the doorway, trying to memorize the way you looked right then—half here, half somewhere far away.

“I made coffee,” I said, though you already knew.

You didn’t answer. Not right away. You just gave a small nod, the kind that’s supposed to mean thank you, but felt more like don’t push me.

I didn’t.
Not yet.

We had been drifting for months by then. Conversations reduced to bullet points: groceries, bills, your mother’s surgery, my deadlines. What used to be laughter had become silence, and what used to be plans had become avoidance. But no one said it aloud. We didn’t fight. We didn’t scream. We just… forgot how to touch each other gently.

That morning, I thought maybe coffee could fix it. Or at least delay it.

You sat down across from me at the kitchen table, your hands wrapped around the mug as if for warmth. You stared into it like there was some answer waiting in the swirl of cream.

“I’m not sure when it stopped feeling right,” you said.

Your voice was soft. Honest. Tired.

I looked at my own coffee but didn’t taste it. “I know.”

I wanted to ask why didn’t we stop sooner?, but the truth was, we were too good at pretending. Too polite, too scared, too hopeful. Like people who keep watering a dead plant because it feels too cruel to admit it’s already gone.

“I think we loved each other,” you said, like you were telling me the weather report.

“I still love you,” I whispered.

That made you look up. For a moment, I thought maybe that would be enough. That love, said out loud, could glue something back together. But your eyes were kind, not hopeful. Gentle, not reaching.

“I know,” you said. “I do too. Just… not in the right way anymore.”

What is the right way? I wanted to ask. But I already knew. The right way doesn’t leave you sitting across from someone who feels like a stranger in your old clothes.

I thought I would cry. I didn’t. Neither did you. Maybe because we’d already cried all those tears separately, on quiet nights when the other person was asleep, or staring out of windows like this one, wondering how we got here.

“We can stay friends,” I said, because people say that when they’re trying to make leaving hurt less.

You smiled. “We probably won’t.”

We both knew it was true. Not out of anger. Just… out of life. People who used to kiss goodnight don’t usually learn how to casually text.

Still, we sat there. Drinking lukewarm coffee. Pretending we weren’t already halfway gone.

I thought about the first coffee we ever shared.
That stupid little diner on Main Street.
You’d ordered black, no sugar. I’d laughed and called you dramatic. You’d teased me for drowning mine in cream and syrup.
We’d stayed for hours, talking about books and movies and the kind of futures we wanted.
None of which included this morning.

“How did we get so quiet?” I asked.

Your smile was sad but soft. “Slowly.”

I wanted to rewind everything. Back to the first time I noticed the space growing between us. Back to the first missed goodnight kiss. The first unanswered how was your day? Back to when fixing it might have worked.

But you can’t rewind real life.

You can only sit in a kitchen with cold coffee and warm heartbreak and try to figure out how to leave without making it worse.

“I don’t want to hate you,” I said.

“You won’t.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.”

You shook your head. “I couldn’t.”

It wasn’t dramatic. There was no shouting. No accusations. No slammed doors or thrown dishes. Just two people sitting quietly, learning how to stop loving each other in real time.

“I guess this is goodbye, then,” I said.

You nodded. But neither of us stood up.

Maybe we were waiting for a sign. A thunderclap. A breaking glass. Something loud enough to give us permission to move. Instead, there was only the clock ticking, the rain falling, the coffee cooling.

“I’ll pack my things later,” you said. “Give us both a minute.”

I almost asked if we could just forget this conversation. Go back to the not-fighting, not-speaking. Pretend a little longer. But no. Pretending got us here. Pretending wouldn’t get us out.

So I nodded too.

You stood. Walked to the door. Paused with your hand on the frame. I wondered if you’d turn back. Kiss me goodbye. Hug me. Say something final and neat and easy to hold onto.

You didn’t.

You just said, “Take care, okay?”

And I said, “You too.”

And that was it.

You left.

I sat there, staring at your untouched coffee, and thought:
We forgot to say goodbye.

Not really. Not with words.
But with everything else.

With the way we stopped looking at each other when we spoke.
With the way we stopped reaching for hands in the dark.
With the way we let mornings pass like this one, silent and heavy, without asking are you okay?
That’s how people really say goodbye. Slowly. Quietly. Without noticing until it’s too late.

I drank both coffees.
Cold, bitter.
Like medicine.

And then I got up and opened the window. Let the rain in. Let the air change. Let the world start again, even if I wasn’t quite ready.

Because sometimes the hardest thing isn’t letting go.
It’s realizing you already did, long ago, and just never said it out loud.