(CHAPTER 1-4)
CHAPTER 1 – The Look
The moment you left didn’t feel like heartbreak. It felt like being erased.
They never tell you how quiet endings are. How surgical. How they slip in and out like ghosts, stealing everything and leaving the lights on.
You didn’t slam the door. You didn’t even raise your voice. You just looked at me—blank and distant, like I was the answer to a question you regretted asking. Your eyes didn’t rage or weep. They were worse than that.
They were indifferent.
I said something. I don’t remember what. Maybe I asked if you were okay. Maybe I begged without meaning to. Maybe I just breathed wrong. Whatever it was, you flinched like I touched a wound I couldn’t see. Then you stood, gathered your coat like you’d been planning this for years, and walked out.
No goodbye. No reason. Just silence.
That look has lived in my mind ever since, gnawing its way through every memory of you that used to feel safe. It replaced the sound of your laugh. It drowned out the warmth of your voice. It eclipsed everything. You didn’t leave like someone heartbroken. You left like someone healed.
And I—
I stayed.
Like an idiot, like a goddamn relic, still clinging to a language we both forgot how to speak. I stayed inside the apartment we built, now hollow and echoing, where even the furniture feels like it’s trying to forget me.
The silence you left behind didn’t just fill the room—it filled me. It wrapped itself around my bones like ice, taught my heart how to flinch instead of beat. And I wake up every day pretending I’m not haunted. Pretending I don’t still hear the echo of your absence in the spaces where you used to breathe.
I’ve become a parody of myself. Smiling when I’m expected to, nodding like I give a shit. I make coffee I don’t drink. I laugh at jokes I don’t hear. People walk past me like I’m wallpaper in their lives—background noise. Set dressing.
But when night comes, the mask slips.
That’s when the dreams begin.
In them, you never left. You’re in the kitchen humming that song you used to butcher on purpose just to make me laugh. You lean against the counter, sipping from that chipped mug we swore we’d throw away and never did. You say my name like it still means something. You kiss me like I’m not the man you walked out on.
And in those dreams, I believe it. I believe I never lost you.
But then I wake up.
And reality hits like a shovel.
Another morning, another grave dug in my chest. I bury hope again, scoop by scoop, trying not to scream. Your ghost sits across from me at breakfast—smug, quiet, patient. It watches me crumble and says nothing. Just like you.
And the worst part?
I think I deserve it.
I think I always did.
They say there are infinite universes. Somewhere, you stayed. Somewhere, I was better. Kinder. Smarter. Enough.
But not here.
Here, I rot in the ruins of the life we almost had. And all that’s left of you is that look.
That fucking look.
CHAPTER 2 – Routine Ghost
The mornings don’t get easier.
I wake up with a weight pressing on my chest, like some invisible hand has anchored me to the mattress. The alarm clock shrieks, but it’s barely enough to pull me from the haze. I lie there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, tracing cracks like they hold answers. Eventually, I force my limbs to move. Drag myself into the bathroom, brush my teeth, shower under cold water that feels like punishment.
Every motion feels mechanical—as if I’m just going through the motions of someone else's life.
I get dressed, usually something neutral, forgettable. I don’t care how I look anymore. I don’t care about much, except the fact that I can still pay my rent.
The commute to work is a blur of gray streets and silent people. I avoid eye contact. I keep my head down. I’m a ghost walking among the living.
At the office, I sit in the same seat I’ve had for years, pretending I’m focused on the screen. I answer emails with hollow words, nod when someone talks, smile when it’s expected. I’m a ghost in a suit.
No one notices the cracks beneath the surface.
Sometimes, a colleague asks if I’m okay.
“Fine,” I say. The lie tastes like poison in my mouth.
There’s no point in explaining. No one would understand. How could they? They haven’t seen the way the silence fills my apartment like a poison. The way my phone never buzzes with your name anymore. The way the days stretch out endlessly, empty and gray.
Lunch is alone, of course. I sit in a corner café, nursing coffee that’s gone cold. I watch couples and friends laugh, their voices a cruel soundtrack to my loneliness. I wonder if they can see the hole inside me. Probably not. I’m good at hiding it.
Back at my desk, I keep telling myself I’m fine. I pretend the ache isn’t spreading, that I’m not unraveling thread by thread. But every smile I fake is a little more brittle. Every joke I laugh at is a little more forced.
When I get home, the apartment is silent but for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant city noise. I move through it like a specter—making dinner I don’t eat, pouring coffee I don’t drink, sitting on the couch pretending it’s company.
Sometimes, I catch myself talking to the empty chair across from me. Whispering your name. Asking questions I know won’t be answered.
And then the nights come. When the world finally shuts up, my mind wakes up. When I’m left alone with the ghosts.
The silence is loudest then. It presses in on me until I feel like I’m suffocating.
I try to scream, but the sound gets stuck in my throat. I try to cry, but the tears never come.
Instead, I rot. Quietly. Intentionally.
And no one notices.
CHAPTER 3 – The Dream
When night falls, I’m never really alone.
Because in the dark, the walls fall away.
Behind my eyelids, another world waits. A place where the sun sets softly behind familiar streets, where the air smells like fresh rain and burning wood. Where the light feels warm and real, not like a spotlight exposing every crack in my skin.
In that world, you stayed.
The apartment is alive there. Music plays softly from an old record player. The couch is cluttered with books and half-finished mugs of coffee. The windows are fogged with rain, and the scent of cinnamon drifts from the kitchen.
You move through the rooms like you belong there. You’re laughing at something I said—a stupid joke I can’t remember—but your smile fills the space like it’s the only thing that matters.
You make coffee the way you always did, carefully, like it’s a ritual. The chipped mugs sit side by side on the table, just like they always did. You hand me one, your fingers brushing mine, and the world stills.
We sit across from each other, sharing silences that don’t hurt. We talk about everything and nothing—inside jokes no one else would understand, plans for weekends we never got to have, the way you always hated the way I left my shoes by the door.
You read aloud something I wrote, stumbling over the words but smiling like they’re poetry. You say my name like it’s a prayer, like it’s the only word you want to say.
I reach across the table and take your hand, the way I always dreamed I could.
In that world, I’m enough.
In that world, you love me.
But it’s fragile. Like smoke between my fingers.
Because when the alarm rings, when the harsh light floods the room, it all shatters.
I wake up alone. Your side of the bed empty and cold. The scent of cinnamon and rain gone.
I sit there, heart pounding, trying to hold onto the fading warmth.
But it slips away.
And I’m left with nothing but the ache.
CHAPTER 4 – Fractured Reflections
The apartment feels smaller now—like the walls are closing in on me, squeezing the air from my lungs.
I found the photo yesterday. A forgotten snapshot wedged between the pages of a book I hadn’t touched in years. You, laughing. Me, half-smiling. The kind of smile I know now was never enough to hold onto.
I stared at it too long, tracing the curve of your mouth, the light in your eyes. The memory hit like a punch—sharp and unrelenting.
How could something so alive feel so dead?
I put the photo face down, but the image burned behind my eyelids for hours. It chased me through the day like a shadow, refusing to be ignored.
I walk through the apartment like a stranger in my own skin. Every corner holds a memory. The spot where you used to sit, the coffee stain on the counter I never cleaned, the worn blanket we shared.
Each one fractures me a little more.
I catch myself talking to the silence again. Whispering things I can’t say aloud. “Why did you leave?” “Did you ever love me?” “Who am I now without you?”
The questions have no answers.
The mirror mocks me every morning. A face I barely recognize stares back—hollow eyes, a jaw clenched tight enough to break. I wonder if I’m still me or just a shadow of the man you left behind.
Sometimes I think if I stare long enough, I’ll see the version of myself from the other universe—the one you stayed for. But it’s just a reflection, cold and unforgiving.
I’m haunted by what I was and what I am now—the space between the two widening like a wound that ne
ver heals.
I don’t know how to be whole without you.
And maybe I never will.
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