The Last Conversation We Never Had

Story

The Last Conversation We Never Had

I should have said it when we were sitting on that cracked bench in the park, your scarf fluttering in the spring breeze, and I kept staring at you like I’d never see you again. I didn’t know then that I wouldn’t. I thought there would always be tomorrow, another chance to speak, another quiet moment where the world softened enough to hold us both.

I wish I had said I was proud of you. Not in a way that anyone else could hear, not as a passing compliment, but the kind that digs into your chest and leaves a warmth that stays even when the world is cold. You deserved to hear that. I should have told you.

I should have said I’m sorry. For the fights that weren’t really about you, for the harsh words that slipped out like knives when they were meant to stay buried, for every silence that stretched too long and left space for doubt to crawl in. You deserved to hear that too.

I should have asked you one last time if you were happy. Not in a casual way, not as a polite curiosity, but as someone who really wanted to know. I should have listened. I should have waited. I didn’t. And now I can’t.

Do you know how it feels to speak to someone who isn’t there? To carry your voice into a space where no one can respond, where your words ricochet off walls and echo back as reminders of everything left unsaid? I’ve tried to talk to the empty room where you should be. I’ve tried to write letters I’ll never send. I’ve tried to speak your name until it loses meaning and becomes just sound.

I should have told you I loved you. I never said it clearly, not in the moments that counted. I thought you knew. I thought you understood. But love isn’t always a silent truth. Love deserves to be spoken, breathed into the air so it can touch the other person before they leave.

I should have asked you about your dreams. The ones you hid behind jokes, the ones that slipped into your journals when you thought I wasn’t looking. I should have encouraged you to chase them, or at least promised to stand beside you while you tried. I didn’t. And now I can’t.

Do you remember that last evening we spent together? We laughed until our sides ached, our voices blending with the hum of the streetlights, and I thought I had forever. I thought forever would be enough to say everything. But I didn’t. I waited. And the world didn’t.

I should have told you that your presence shaped me more than I realized. The way you tilted your head when you were thinking, the way you laughed at the smallest things, the way your hands could make silence feel like music. I never told you that. And now, I can’t.

I should have forgiven you for the little hurts that weren’t worth remembering, the arguments that never mattered, the times you failed in ways that didn’t define your worth. I should have asked you to forgive me for the same things. I didn’t. I can’t.

Sometimes I imagine what that conversation would have been like. I imagine sitting across from you, voice trembling, eyes full of words that refused to leave my throat, and finally saying them all. Saying I’m sorry. Saying I’m proud. Saying I love you. And maybe, just maybe, you would have smiled, touched my hand, and whispered back something I’ve spent years aching to hear.

But that conversation will never happen. You are gone, and I am left with the weight of everything I never said. I carry it like a stone in my chest, cold and heavy, and yet somehow sacred.

I speak to you now in whispers, in memories, in letters that remain unsent. I speak to you in quiet moments, when the world is still and I can pretend, just for a second, that you are still here.

I should have told you all these things.

I should have told you before it was too late.

And now, the only place I can speak freely is in the silence of my own heart, where your name echoes endlessly, a ghost of words never shared, a conversation that exists only in the space between what was and what could have been.

I hope you hear me anyway.