The Morning After the Goodbye

The Morning After the Goodbye

By: Abdullah

The alarm went off at 7:00 a.m., just like it always did. The same sharp sound, the same vibration across the nightstand. But when I opened my eyes, the room felt different heavier somehow.

The space beside me was empty. Not just empty in the way a bed usually is when someone wakes up early, but hollow, echoing. The blanket still carried his scent, faint but undeniable, like a shadow that refused to leave.

I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling. I thought maybe if I didn’t move, if I didn’t let the day begin, then the goodbye from last night would somehow undo itself. Maybe I would hear his voice in the kitchen, maybe he would come back with coffee and tell me it was all a mistake.

But the silence was unbroken.


When I finally stood, the floor was cold beneath my feet. I walked to the kitchen out of habit, and that’s when the ordinariness hit me hardest. The coffee mug he always used was still in the cupboard. His shoes were still by the door. There wasn’t a dramatic erasure of him no empty shelves or bare walls just the same ordinary objects, suddenly transformed into reminders.

I made coffee, but it tasted different. Bitterer, even though I hadn’t changed the amount of sugar. Maybe it wasn’t the coffee. Maybe it was me.

I sat at the table, staring at the chair across from me. The chair that had held arguments and laughter, late-night conversations and quiet silences. Now it was just wood and fabric. It’s strange how objects lose their meaning when the person who gave them meaning is gone.



The morning after a goodbye is not loud. It doesn’t scream. It doesn’t break down doors. It whispers in small ways. The toothbrush still next to yours. The way you instinctively set out two plates before remembering there’s only one now. The sudden, unbearable quiet when you realize no one will be texting to ask if you got to work safely.

I tried to keep busy. That’s what people always say to do. Wash the dishes. Fold the laundry. But each task only echoed back the absence. Every sock folded reminded me of the ones missing. Every plate stacked reminded me of dinners for two.

At some point, I sat on the couch and let the ordinary sounds of the outside world reach me a dog barking, a car horn, children running past on their way to school. Life was moving on as if nothing had changed. And maybe for the world, nothing had. But for me, everything had.



I thought about the goodbye itself. The words exchanged, the tears, the final look. I replayed it like a movie scene, pausing and rewinding, searching for the moment I could have changed. Could I have said something different? Could I have asked him to stay? But then another voice, quieter but firmer, whispered: “No. It was always going to end this way.”

And that’s the cruel truth about endings. They don’t always explode. Sometimes they arrive quietly, like the sun setting, leaving you in a darkness you didn’t notice until it was complete.


By noon, I realized I hadn’t eaten. The thought of food made my stomach twist, but I made a sandwich anyway. I took one bite and set it down. Hunger wasn’t stronger than grief.

I spent the afternoon wandering through the apartment, touching things I didn’t need to touch. The book he left half-read. The sweater draped over the chair. My own reflection in the mirror eyes swollen, face tired. I didn’t recognize myself, but then again, why would I? I wasn’t the same person I was yesterday.


As evening approached, I went to the window. The sky was painted in shades of orange and pink, just like any other day. And for the first time, I realized that the world wasn’t cruel in its indifference. It was steady. Reliable. The sun would rise again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

That thought didn’t heal me, but it gave me something else: the faintest thread of comfort. The morning after the goodbye was unbearable, yes, but it was also proof that I was still here. That even with the silence, the emptiness, the ache I was still breathing.

And maybe that’s all healing is at first. Not moving on. Not forgetting. Just surviving the mornings after. One at a time.