The Silence That Spilled from My Heart

We never really said goodbye. Not when you left for Paris. Not when I stayed behind. Not when our lives quietly unraveled into separate mornings. And not even when time, ever relentless, brushed dust over our shared memories like forgotten photo albums in an attic.

I still remember the night before your flight. You were sitting by the window, legs curled up, your sweater half slipping off one shoulder. You always did that—wore sweaters too big for you. You said it made you feel safe. Maybe I should’ve been your sweater. Maybe I should’ve been anything that made you feel like home.

“I’m scared,” you whispered, tracing patterns on the foggy glass.

“Of what?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know.

“Of becoming someone you no longer recognize,” you said. And then, softly, as if it might shatter us, “Or someone I no longer recognize.”

I didn’t respond. Not because I didn’t feel the same, but because the words inside me had turned to knots. We were two souls tangled in a web of unspoken fears. And Paris was the scissors.

The morning after, you were gone.

No note. No goodbye. Just a half-drunk cup of tea on the kitchen counter and a faint smell of lavender on your pillow. I stared at the empty apartment and wondered if love always left like this—silently, like mist fading under the morning sun.

Days turned into weeks. I walked to the market and almost picked up your favorite brand of tea. I caught myself humming that stupid song you used to sing in the shower. I talked to your ghost more than I talked to real people. You had become a memory I couldn’t evict.

I spent months replaying everything. That time you cried in the movie theater because a cartoon fox lost its mother. The Sunday mornings you made pancakes but always burned the first one—“sacrifice to the breakfast gods,” you called it. The way your fingers fit perfectly between mine, as if we were puzzle pieces someone lost in the attic. The late-night walks, the rain-soaked kisses, the heated arguments that always ended in laughter or silence, but never hate.

Then life happened.

Emails became occasional. Phone calls turned into missed calls. Time zones, career moves, new friends. Your voice, once my daily rhythm, became a fading echo in a corridor I didn’t walk down anymore. I stopped expecting your name on my phone screen. I stopped flinching every time I heard French spoken in public.

One day, I saw a photo of you on social media. Eiffel Tower behind you, new haircut, a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. Someone had tagged you. The caption read: “New beginnings 🌟.”

I stared at it for a long time, not sure what I felt. Maybe pride. Maybe pain. Maybe just a hollow ache in the shape of your silhouette.

Years passed.

I moved to a new city, took up writing again. I filled notebooks with words I couldn’t say to you. Stories of people who stayed. Stories of people who didn’t. All of them, somehow, had your eyes. I watched the seasons change from my apartment window, imagining you somewhere across the ocean doing the same. Wondering if your coffee still needed two sugars and a sarcastic grin.

And then—just when I had convinced myself the door was closed—you came back.

A letter. Handwritten. On old, textured paper. No envelope. Just folded neatly and left under my apartment door, as if the universe still wanted us to have our moment.

It read:

I walked by our old apartment today. The window was open. I thought I heard music, but maybe it was just memory playing tricks. I don’t know why I left the way I did. I guess I thought disappearing would hurt less than saying goodbye. I was wrong. I still see you in crowded streets and empty cafes. Do you still take your coffee with two sugars and that sarcastic smile? I hope you do.I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. So here it is, years later: Goodbye, my love. And maybe… if time is kind, hello again.— L.

I didn’t cry. Not immediately. I just stood there, letter trembling in my hands, heart sprinting through every memory we ever made. The silence between us had been loud for so long, I forgot what it felt like to hear your voice—even in ink.

I read it again. And again. I folded it back exactly the way I’d found it and placed it beside my bed, like a relic of a love that refused to fade.

And then I did something I hadn’t done in years.

I made pancakes. Burned the first one.

Sacrifice to the breakfast gods.

Just in case you ever come home again.

And I waited. Not with desperation, not with expectation, but with the quiet hope that maybe some stories don't end—they just pause.

Some goodbyes are preludes to second hellos.