The Echo of Violet

Her presence was quiet, almost imperceptible, like the aftertaste of a song. Not the notes themselves, but the feelings they left behind once the music had stopped. She wasn’t a person, not really. But she was everywhere I went, every turn of my day, like a shadow that never quite fit into the light.

It started when I was twelve, a year when all the doors of my life were still wide open, and I hadn't yet learned to shut them out. The year I had discovered how small the world could be. How there were parts of people that could slip past your senses without you ever realizing they’d arrived.

I had found her in a corner of my room, sitting on the edge of my bed, her legs crossed as though she had been there for a long time—waiting, maybe. She didn’t look at me, but I could tell she knew I was there. Her presence was like the memory of a person you couldn’t recall but still felt when you reached for the edges of your thoughts.

“Violet,” I said, my voice cracking with confusion. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t answer. But she didn’t need to. I could see in the tilt of her head, in the faintest of smiles that didn’t reach her eyes, that she was as much a part of my world as I was. The weird part was that she didn’t feel foreign. Not like an intruder or a ghost. She felt like something I had been expecting, something that belonged.

It became a routine after that—her appearing in my room, in my life. Sometimes she’d be sitting in that same spot on my bed, other times beside me at the kitchen table, or standing at the window, looking out as though she were waiting for something. She always seemed to be waiting, but for what, I never knew. It was as if she could see the future that I couldn’t. Or maybe she could see things that had already passed but couldn’t be remembered.

As the years went on, her visits continued, growing less frequent, but never completely disappearing. She was there when I felt lost in high school, when I had my heart broken for the first time, and when I got into college and felt the weight of the world settle into my chest. She was the phantom, the ghost, that lingered without cause.

I began to talk to her, though she never responded. She’d listen—always patient, her gaze distant, as though she were hearing something I couldn’t understand. I think I spoke to her about my life, about the things that never seemed to make sense, about the world that felt both too big and too small at the same time.

Then, one day, she was gone.

Not in the way people leave. Not in the dramatic shift of a door slamming shut, or a goodbye left unsaid. She just stopped appearing. There were no signs, no warnings. I woke up one morning, as usual, expecting her to be there, sitting in the corner of my room, but the space was empty.

At first, I thought maybe it was just my imagination—maybe I had created her to fill a space in my mind, a space that was always there but I had never fully understood. Perhaps she had never been real at all. But I didn’t believe that. Not really.

I looked for her in the places we’d once been—my room, the library, the park near the edge of town where I used to walk alone. But she was gone. The absence of her presence hung like an unspoken word in the air, and I felt it more than I saw it.

I tried to go on with my life. I told myself that people change, that things fade, that memories blur. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. Something that had once been there, something I couldn’t name.

Years passed, and I moved forward. I found love, lost it, found new paths, took wrong turns, and all the while, I could still feel her. Not in the same way, not the way I had when I was younger. But she was still there—like a soft hum in the background of everything I did, a name I couldn’t quite recall but that followed me like a soft whisper.

Then one day, after all these years, I went back to the park by the edge of town. It was late in the afternoon, the sky streaked with pinks and oranges. I sat down on the old stone bench, looking at the familiar view of the trees and the winding path. It had always been my favorite spot. And as I sat there, I felt it again. The faintest presence. The weight of her absence, but also the comfort of knowing she was there, or had been.

And just for a moment, I thought I saw her. Standing by the path, her back to me, her figure as faint and blurry as the air around her. She turned slightly, as if to acknowledge my gaze, and I could see that small, quiet smile—one that wasn’t sad or happy, but something else entirely, something beyond both.

Then, just as quickly, she was gone again. Like a ripple on the surface of water, vanishing as soon as it had formed.

I don’t know if Violet was ever real. I don’t know if she was a product of my mind or a ghost of something that existed before me. Maybe she was something I needed, or maybe I was something she needed. But as I sat there in the fading light, I realized something: she wasn’t gone. She never really was.

Because absence, I’ve come to understand, isn’t always about what’s lost. It’s about what remains.

And in the quiet moments, when I least expect it, I still feel Violet there. Not in the way of a memory or a dream, but in the space between one thought and the next, in the pause before the world continues. She’s there, waiting, as she always was. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find her again—when I’m ready.