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The thing about people like him?
They don't leave with noise.
They leave with silence.
And that silence stays louder than any goodbye ever could.
---
It's been four days.
Four days since he left that voicemail.
Four days since I saw his name light up my phone.
Four days since I stopped sleeping on the right side of my bed—
the side he always claimed with a smirk and a hoodie that still smells like him.
The room feels emptier now.
But not in the obvious ways.
His things were never here.
He never left a toothbrush.
Never hung a jacket on my chair.
Never brought enough of himself to make it a shared space.
But still—
the air feels heavier.
The shadows cling to corners he once stood in.
My mirror catches glimpses of a boy who isn't here anymore.
I try not to look.
---
I tell myself I'm not waiting.
But I glance at the door too often.
Keep my phone too close.
Refresh my texts like an addict, searching for something that won't come.
Even my playlist feels off.
Every song reminds me of his laugh,
his hands,
his stupid fake accent he'd use just to annoy me.
I try playing different music.
It still doesn't help.
Because grief doesn't care about melodies.
It lingers in the spaces between notes.
In the places he never touched, but somehow still owned.
---
I went to the rooftop last night.
Our rooftop.
The one where he told me I scared him.
Where I told him I didn't mind breaking, if it was in his arms.
It's quieter now.
Colder.
And I hate how I still wrapped myself in his hoodie like a second skin.
As if wearing it could bring him back.
As if fabric could stitch the tear he left behind.
---
"You'll be okay," my best friend tells me.
"You always are."
But I don't want to be okay.
I want to be understood.
I want someone to see the empty coffee mug on my desk and know he used to drink from it.
I want someone to hear the silence in my room and feel the ghost he left behind.
But I don't say any of that.
I just nod.
Smile.
Say, "Yeah. I know."
Because it's easier to be strong than to explain how you miss someone who never gave you a label to begin with.
---
The worst part?
He never promised me forever.
But he made me believe in it anyway.
With his hands,
his eyes,
his fucking presence.
He made me believe that maybe—just maybe—this time would be different.
And maybe that's on me.
Maybe I should've known better than to build a home in a boy who never stayed long enough to unpack.
---
But God,
if he walked through that door right now,
with that same crooked smile and that same tired voice whispering my name—
I'd break my own heart all over again just to hold him one more night.
Because the truth?
I don't miss him.
I miss the way I felt when I was with him.
Alive.
Wreckless.
Seen.
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