Write a Story in Reverse

The Last Goodbye

She closed the door without a word.

The silence after the click was deafening—final, like a gravestone pressed into place. The scent of her still lingered in the apartment, light and floral, but her presence had already slipped out of reach. His hands were shaking, not from anger, but from the aching void left in the wake of everything unsaid.

Only the broken picture frame on the floor bore witness to what had transpired. A photo once cherished now cracked into a mosaic of fractured smiles—two people frozen in happiness they couldn’t hold onto. He didn’t bother to pick it up. There was nothing left to preserve.

She had said, “I tried, Leo. God knows I tried.”

He hadn’t answered. He’d stared past her at the kitchen wall as if words there might rescue them both. But the silence between them had spoken louder than any apology could.

Only an hour before, they'd been sitting across the dinner table, forks untouched, the food growing cold. She’d reached for her wine glass more than her plate. He had checked his phone twice, even though he wasn’t expecting a message. It had become habit—to hide behind a screen instead of facing her eyes.

Earlier still, she had found the letter.

Folded neatly, it had slipped from between the pages of one of his old notebooks. Her fingers had trembled as she read it, written months ago and never meant to be found.

In it, he confessed to the affair.

Not the kind with bodies, but one of long, intimate text messages exchanged with someone who offered what she no longer did—attention, admiration, and lighthearted escape.

“I never meant to fall,” the letter said.

She’d read it twice. Then once more, just to be sure. The words didn’t change.

Before that, only yesterday, she had bought tulips.

His favorite. Yellow. He used to say they reminded him of the sun on a cold morning.

She had placed them in a vase by the window before he got home, a hopeful gesture from someone desperate to find her way back to the man she once knew. He hadn’t noticed them.

He’d walked past the flowers, past her, straight to the bedroom, muttering something about being tired.

Her heart had withered just a little more.

A week ago, she had planned a weekend getaway.

She found an old cottage near the coast they used to visit. She remembered how he once painted her in that place—sunlight in her hair, laughter in her throat.

But when she showed him the brochure, he had smiled weakly and said, “Maybe another time.”

There was never another time.

Two months earlier, it had rained all day.

They had argued about something trivial—dirty dishes, maybe, or a missed call. But underneath it was a much larger, unspoken war.

She had said, “Do you even see me anymore?”

And he had thrown back, “Do you even like me anymore?”

They’d both gone to bed facing opposite walls. That distance had only grown since.

Three months ago, she’d found a journal he kept.

He had stopped writing in it after the first few entries. But those few pages were like keys to doors she hadn’t known existed inside him.

He wrote of how he feared becoming ordinary, how he didn’t know how to be happy with what he had.

He wrote of how he loved her but sometimes felt trapped in the routine.

She cried that night, but said nothing.

She thought she could love him through it.

Four months ago, he surprised her with breakfast in bed.

It was a clumsy attempt—burnt toast and undercooked eggs—but she’d laughed and kissed him anyway.

He had grinned, that crooked grin she once fell for, and told her, “Let’s not let life make us boring.”

They’d made love later, slow and full of warmth.

She thought maybe they were turning a page.

Six months ago, they danced barefoot in the living room.

A record player spun something slow and dreamy, and they twirled like two foolish kids.

She wore one of his shirts.

He whispered promises he meant in the moment.

“We’re going to be okay.”

And she believed him.

A year ago, they signed the lease to the apartment.

They had stood in the center of the empty living room, arms wrapped around each other, envisioning a future.

They painted the walls themselves—left one handprint each on the inside of a closet door like teenagers in love.

That night, they ordered takeout and fell asleep on the floor, the world soft and endless before them.

And at the very beginning—

He saw her across a crowded bookstore, holding a copy of The Little Prince.

She smiled at him before he could look away.

“That’s my favorite,” he said.

“Then I guess we have something in common,” she replied.

If only they had known then,

That the hardest part of love is not the falling,

But staying—

When the music stops,

When the pages close,

When goodbye comes quietly through a door that will never open again.