Silent farewell, audible yearning

My boyfriend and I met in high school.

We were crazy in love—the kind of couple everyone else called “goals.”

Then, a year ago, he died of an illness that took him too fast.

While he was slipping away he kept stroking my hand.

“Babe, when I’m gone, take care of yourself, okay?”

He left me the house, enough money to breathe easy, and even pulled strings to land me a steady job.

At the funeral people looked at me as if I were a broken doll.

I stared at the photo on the stand and felt… nothing.

I thought I’d fall apart.

I thought I’d cry until the sheets rotted.

I didn’t.

I get up, I go to work, I come home.

I shop for groceries and cook things I actually like.

When I’m tired I take a day off; when I’m restless I hop a train to a city I’ve always wanted to see.

Friends text, worried: “Want company?”

I always answer, “I’m fine,” and I mean it.

Because he never really left.

At night I still smell his cologne on the pillow.

Each morning our framed photo greets me—his grin wide enough to light the room.

I eat from the plates he bought me; the twin toothbrushes stand together at the sink; his favorite shirts hang in the closet, sleeves still shaped like him.

He’s here.

My stomach, though—fragile as ever.

Last night I ate something questionable.

The cramping started like clockwork.

“Honey, my stomach…” I called out, expecting his familiar footsteps, the clatter of pills, the warm water bottle pressed to my belly, the half-scolding half-cuddle that always followed.

Silence.

I crawled to the medicine box myself, fingers shaking, and flipped it open.

A slip of paper lay on top:

*“Raided the fridge again, huh?”*

*“When I’m not around, do you ever behave?”*