Silence has a texture. It's not just the absence of noise — it is a weight. An invisible presence that fills every corner of daily life, that settles into the folds of memories, into objects, into moments. After you, it was this silence that swallowed me whole.
I haven't changed the sheets. I haven't moved your cup, still sitting there, on the top shelf you never quite reached without standing on tiptoes. Your scent has faded, but I still search for it. Ridiculous, isn't it? We think we can hold on to everything. Even the air you once breathed.
Mornings have turned into dull routines. The coffee is always cold—whether out of habit or surrender, I no longer know. I drink it without thought, without feeling. Just a gesture repeated so many times it no longer means anything. Except it always brings you back.
I keep living, at least on the surface. I open the curtains, answer some emails, sort through my photographs. But everything is blurry now. The world has lost its sharp edges since you left. And what I do, I do without you. That is the hardest part: everything we once shared keeps going on, but without us. Things happen without you, as if you never really mattered. And I fight to not forget you, even if every memory tears me apart.
Camille called me yesterday. She said, "You have to get out, Léna. You can't stay locked away like this." "Like this" — meaning our apartment. The one we picked together after hours of arguing over the light, the white walls, the wooden floor. The one where you were still laughing just a few weeks ago. She doesn't understand that every outing is a minefield. Every street corner, every bench, every song spilling out from a café is an ambush. The world has become dangerous since you disappeared.
I went out anyway. Out of defiance, or maybe to defy you. I walked for hours. Aimless, without a map. Just to see if my legs still knew how to carry me. The wind was cold. Not the biting kind, but the kind that whispers. The one that murmurs memories between dead leaves.
I passed by our cinema. The neon sign flickered, the same one you used to hate and mimic with a nod like a metronome. I smiled. It hurt. You know that kind of smile that squeezes your chest tight? It looks like a smile, but inside, it bleeds.
Inside, I saw the scene again. Our hands brushing. You slipping your arm behind my shoulder, awkwardly. The movie we barely watched. The kiss we didn't dare to give. The waiting. That gentle tension that made everything tremble, even when everything seemed still. It was so strong it felt like the world had stopped. Maybe it really had.
You always told me that the silence between us was never awkward. That it was a silence that soothed, not one that pushed away. I don't know why, but that phrase keeps coming back to me. Maybe because today, that silence no longer comforts. It consumes me.
I crossed paths with an old woman on a bench. She was slowly reading a paperback, as if chewing every word. I sat next to her without speaking. It felt strange but soothing. She didn't look at me. She just sighed between two pages:
— "It's after they leave that we hear everything they never said."
I froze. She knew nothing about me, yet she just summed up my entire pain. I nodded as if I agreed. But inside, I wanted to scream. To scream out all the words I never told you. All the things I should have said when there was still time. That I loved you more than I knew how to show. That your leaving broke me but I don't blame you. That you remain, even in absence, the light of my grey days.
But you weren't there. And screaming into the void has never made an echo.
I came home. The apartment welcomed me with that polite coldness of deserted places. There are no shouts here. No fights. No laughter. Only the walls echoing a silence I didn't choose.
I opened your drawer. You had left a notebook. Not the school one. A small spiral-bound notebook you sometimes carried secretly. I hesitated, then read it.
Only a few scribbled lines.
"I don't know how to tell her that I'm afraid. Afraid of hurting her. Afraid of staying. Afraid of not loving enough."
I cried. Not because you didn't love me well enough. But because you loved me with that fear. And I never saw it. I, too, was scared. But I hid it behind my silences. We loved each other like tightrope walkers, without a safety net. And inevitably, one of us fell.
You fell. Or maybe I did first. And the emptiness between us swallowed everything.
Since then, I hear nothing but silence. It is everywhere. In the bedroom, the hallway, my thoughts. It doesn't make a sound, but it squeaks, it weighs, it kills softly. You have become that silence. And I still search for you, even there.
Today, I tried to take photos again. I framed the window where the light used to fall so beautifully on your face. But something was missing. You. Your shadow. Your laughter spilling out of the frame. So I lowered the camera. I looked at the light. And I waited. As if you would come back with it.
Camille says I have to move on. But move on toward what? If you're no longer here to look at the world with me, what does this world have to offer? The streets are full, yes, of passersby, faces, noise. But all I see is your absence.
And yet… there was this dream, the other night. You were there. Not as a memory, but as a real presence. You said nothing. You just took my hand. And I cried, in the dream, because I knew it was only a dream. When I woke up, my pillow was soaked. And your name stuck in my throat like a thorn.
I know you won't come back. I try to tell myself every day. Like an absurd mantra.
You. Will. Not. Come. Back.
But then why do I still leave your bowl empty on the table? Why do I keep listening to that song you used to hum in the shower? Why do I sometimes think I hear the key turning in the lock?
Maybe because silence is not the end. Maybe it's a transition. A waiting. A passage between what was and what might be. Maybe we have to go through this to learn how to live differently.
But not yet. Not today. Today, it's still you. Still us. Even if this "us" only lives in my memory now.
So, I write to you. Even if you will never read these lines. Even if they will be lost in a forgotten notebook, like yours.
"After you, the silence. But in that silence, there is still your echo. And as long as I hear it, I will know I truly loved you."
Closing scene:
As I close your notebook, an envelope slips out from between the pages. Sealed. With my name on it.
A shiver. A hesitation.
To be continued…
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