I find myself back here.
Like I always do. Every year.
Like a man sleepwalking into a memory
that still hasn’t decided if it wants to let him in.
Some part of me only wakes up here.
The softest part. The truest part.
The part I spend the rest of the year pretending doesn’t exist.
We never named this place.
Never dared to.
As if giving it a name would make it real.
As if real would’ve cost us everything.
But once a year, we found our way back
like it had been waiting for us the whole time.
We’d spend the day in bed,
talking about nothing. About everything.
Watching movies we never finish.
Drinking cheap sangria. Laughing like we’ve always been in love.
Every glance a caress we never dared to give.
Like we’d lived a lifetime in one day.
And somehow, that was enough.
That was what we had.
One day carved out of the wreckage.
No past to untangle. No future to ruin it.
Just the kind of love that doesn’t ask for more
because it already knows it can’t have it.
For one day, we got to be
what the world never gave us permission to be.
And then night would fall.
The room would dissolve.
And I’d be back where I was.
Pretending again.
And every time, I’d wonder
when she fades away…
did she take all of me with her?
—
She’s not here.
Not yet.
I don’t think she is coming.
I stand in the middle of the room.
Our room.
And for a moment, it feels like she’s just in the next breath.
Like if I wait still enough, quiet enough,
she’ll appear the way she always does
with that soft smile that ruins me.
But the room holds its breath.
Same wooden floors.
Same sunlight spilling across the bed like a memory trying to reach me.
Same hum from the vinyl player resting by the window.
The books still lean like they’ve been reading each other.
The sangria’s already sweating on the counter.
It’s all exactly as we left it.
But something’s different.
It feels quieter. Not emptier, just… listening.
Like even the walls are wondering if she’ll walk through the door.
I tell myself she’s just late.
That maybe she needed a moment.
That maybe she stood at the edge of this room and couldn’t walk in.
Or maybe she has already forgotten me.
And I just haven’t caught up to it yet.
—
I walk to the record player.
Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks is already waiting
like it’s been waiting for me.
Like it knows.
I used to think it was an album about endings.
Now I think it’s about everything that happens after.
When love doesn’t die, but it stops being allowed to live.
When all you have left is the echo.
I drop the needle.
Tangled Up in Blue starts slow
like even the music isn’t sure I’m ready to hear it.
I mouth the lyrics.
Not to sing. Just to survive them.
What else do you do when you need someone else
to bleed for you?
I tell myself it’s okay if she doesn’t show.
Maybe the only way to love someone
without breaking them
is to do it quietly.
—
I was about to pour another glass of sangria
when Simple Twist of Fate started playing.
And then I heard it…
Not a knock.
Not even a sound.
Just… her.
Like my body knew she was there
before I even turned around.
I think my heart stopped.
Or maybe it finally started again.
I couldn’t tell the difference.
Her hair was different.
But her eyes
they still looked at me
like I was someone worth coming home to.
And even after all these years
she is still the most beautiful kind of ache I’ve ever seen.
“You started drinking without me?” she said.
Same teasing tone.
Same eyes that see through me.
I shrugged, trying to play it cool,
but my whole body was trembling like a prayer.
“I thought maybe you weren’t coming,” I said.
She looked away. Then back.
“Neither did I.”
She crossed the room like she’d always lived there.
And I wanted to kiss her.
God, I wanted to kiss her.
But I didn’t.
She hugged me.
Friendly, careful, soft,
that same too-short peck on the cheek.
and it felt like being seen
and punished in the same breath.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
And for the first time all year,
I believed I was alive.
—
We didn’t fall into conversation.
We fell into rhythm.
Like some part of us had just been on pause,
waiting for the other to press play.
She sat beside me… close, but not touching.
And yet I felt her everywhere.
Like she’d walked into my skin
and lit up the part of me I thought I buried.
We talked like no time had passed.
Like the world outside had never existed.
She stole my drink. I stole it back.
We teased. We laughed.
God, we laughed.
Like grief was a ghost that couldn’t find us in here.
There were moments,
quiet, breathless ones,
when she looked at me
like I was still hers.
And in that look,
I didn’t feel like a man who’d failed at pretending.
I felt like someone who’d been found.
Not as the strong one.
Not the man the world leans on.
Just me.
Soft. Tired. Stupidly romantic.
The version of myself I only ever met in her presence.
And for a moment,
I let myself believe
that maybe that version of me
was worth loving.
But even then,
somewhere in the corner of the room,
I could feel the day beginning to fold in on itself.
Like the light was already trying to leave.
—
There was a pause in the air.
Like the room itself exhaled.
We weren’t saying much anymore.
The kind of silence that doesn’t ask to be filled.
The kind that says everything.
She was looking out the window,
her fingers curled around the stem of her glass,
twisting it gently like she was winding time backward.
I knew she wanted to say something.
I could feel it.
But she didn’t.
“You’re not coming back next year… are you?” I said.
She didn’t move.
Just leaned her head against my shoulder.
Her silence said everything.
She was tired. Not the kind you sleep off,
the kind you carry in your soul.
She touched my cheek, once,
like she was memorising the shape of me
before she let me go.
“Please,” she whispered,
“don’t ask me to stay.”
And I stayed quiet.
Because I saw it.
The grief she carried
wasn’t about walking away from this room.
It was about walking away from me.
The version of love that spilled into mornings and arguments
and mundane miracles.
And she knew she couldn’t have it.
Not without unmaking both of us.
Not without breaking everything.
I saw it in her eyes.
How hard she had tried to unlove me.
And failed.
I wanted to say I love you.
I wanted to say I’m sorry.
But nothing I said would undo the sorrow I’d left in her.
Nothing could fix a love that only existed between two people
who didn’t belong to themselves.
“Even if we can’t have a life,” I said,
“Let us have one day.”
She teared up.
And she hugged me.
Her arms around my neck.
Her tears warm against my skin.
Like rain falling just before the drought.
She pulled back.
I kissed her cheek.
Not out of politeness.
Not out of desperation.
But because I needed to remember
what it felt like
to be that close to something
we couldn’t keep.
She looked at me.
Smiled that smile that could bring me to my knees.
“All these years,” I whispered,
“I wanted to know what your lips tasted like.”
She didn’t blink.
“All these years,” she said,
“you never asked.”
—
When she kissed me, I forgot everything that came before it.
Her lips were warm. Certain.
Not trembling… trembling had passed.
There was no past. No future. No room.
Just the soft insistence of her mouth
and the sound of both of us coming home.
I held her face like it was something holy.
She kissed my palm. Closed her eyes.
Whispered, “I want you.”
Her dress slipped off her shoulders
like a secret she didn’t need to protect anymore.
I watched it fall… slow, deliberate,
as though time had softened to give us more of itself.
My hands followed,
ribs, waist, hips,
the softness I’d only ever reach in dreams.
Each curve a psalm only we remembered.
Her skin lifted beneath my breath.
I kissed every place that stirred.
Her neck. Her collarbone. The hollow between her breasts.
And when I took one into my mouth,
she gasped… raw, instinctive,
a sound pulled from somewhere deeper
than words ever go.
She looked at me,
not shy, not coy,
but with the kind of hunger that knows exactly what it needs.
—
She lay back, her knees falling open,
not as invitation,
but as recognition.
I kissed the inside of her wrist,
then her ribs, her hips,
then lower.
Each press of my mouth a vow to remember the scent of her skin.
And when I reached,
I paused.
Not from hesitation.
From reverence.
She was already wet.
Already rising.
I kissed her thighs.
Breathed softly against the tender space between.
Then finally, my tongue met her.
I was slow. Intentional. Listening.
Not just to her moans,
but to the way she tightened in my hair,
the hush before her gasp,
the way she whispered my name
like it might slip through her fingers.
I stayed with her.
Held her in place.
Felt her rise, buckle, unravel,
until her whole body arched,
her mouth parting,
and she cried out, bare and unashamed.
When she pulled me up to kiss her,
her lips were wild, her body loose.
I gathered her close,
her chest still fluttering against mine,
and held her there
until the stillness returned.
She looked at me
and smiled like a woman undone.
But not broken.
Freed.
—
I guided her wrists above her head,
gently, insistently,
and held them there.
She blinked,
half surprise, half surrender,
then softened beneath me,
like she’d been waiting
to feel safe enough
to finally let go.
We kissed,
slow, fevered,
until the distance between us blurred.
And when I entered her,
she gasped… sharp, breathless,
her back lifting from the bed
like something sacred had just bloomed inside her.
She clenched around me… tight, aching,
like her body was trying to memorize
every shape and rhythm of being opened by something it had longed for.
Her hips rose to meet mine,
not with urgency, but devotion,
as if each thrust
inscribed something true into the center of her.
Her legs wrapped around me.
Her voice cracked in my ear,
my name falling from her lips
like a truth finally spoken.
I moved deeper.
Slower.
No choreography.
Just heat. Just pulse.
Just two bodies remembering what it means
to belong to something holy.
She rolled us over without hesitation,
never breaking our gaze,
as she guided herself onto me.
Her hands on my chest,
her thighs trembling,
her breath catching at the stretch.
And she rode me,
slow, deep,
like she needed to feel all of it.
Not the thrust, but the reach.
Not the rhythm, but the ruin.
She leaned forward, kissed me,
then pressed her forehead to mine,
and in that hush,
our bodies found a rhythm all their own.
We moved together,
not toward climax,
but toward collapse.
Her moans were broken only by silence.
Her eyes stayed open,
watching mine.
When she began to stutter,
hips faltering, breath undone,
I held her,
arms wrapped around her back,
mouth open to her name,
and we came together.
Not loud.
Not lost.
Just full.
After, she stayed on top of me,
our bodies still joined,
our hands woven like vows.
Not because she needed to.
But because I did.
Because she had let me see her.
All of her.
And in that moment,
we weren’t lovers or ghosts or regret.
We were something larger than desire.
We were whole.
—
We stayed like that for a while.
Her head on my chest.
My hand moving slowly over the curve of her back.
Neither of us speaking. Just breathing.
Trying to memorize the shape of what we’d just shared.
I didn’t know what time it was.
Didn’t want to.
Time didn’t belong here.
Nothing real did.
She looked up at me and smiled
like she’d always been mine.
Like we hadn’t spent years pretending otherwise.
“You always felt like home,” she said.
And part of me, some tender, feral part, melted.
So I kissed her forehead
and hoped she could feel everything I couldn’t say.
We slipped into our robes,
sat cross-legged on the floor
with a half-warm pizza between us.
Spent the rest of the night talking.
I don’t even remember what we spoke about.
She had pizza sauce on her cheek.
Sangria in one hand.
Trying to tell a story and laugh with her mouth full.
No performance. No pose. Just her,
unkempt, unbothered,
so entirely herself.
And I looked at her and thought,
God, this is it.
This is what love feels like
when it’s allowed to breathe.
We stood on the balcony,
robes against bare skin,
watching the sky bleed itself into dusk.
The room began to fade away.
And so did we.
She reached for my hand.
I held it, just to feel her presence one more time.
Didn’t say a word.
Didn’t have to.
She leaned in, forehead to mine.
“All these years,” she whispered.
“I never said it.”
My throat tightened.
But I nodded.
“I know.”
She touched my face
with a softness that broke something in me.
Her eyes full of a love I’d spent years imagining
and still didn’t feel worthy of.
“But I want to,” she said.
A breath. As the room slowly disappears.
Her hand slipping away from me.
“I love you.”
I kissed her.
Soft. Slow. Grateful.
“I’d rather you say,
see you when I see you.”
She smiled, eyes tearing up.
“See you when I see you.”
And just like that
she was gone.
Not like a ghost.
Not like goodbye.
More like a breath
you didn’t know you were holding
until it slips out
and takes the rest with it.
—
I woke up on the couch in my study.
The room was dark, except for the soft light above the piano.
The kind of light that doesn’t ask you to move.
The kind that waits.
I didn’t cry.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t need to.
I just sat.
Let the ache settle where it wanted.
Let the silence name what I couldn’t.
That it was over.
That I had loved her.
That I still did.
And slowly, I moved to the piano.
Not to write a love song.
Not to bring her back.
But to remember us.
Not who we were in the world.
But who we were here
when no one was watching.
When we let ourselves be seen.
Be soft.
Be stupid.
Be real.
I played If You See Her, Say Hello.
Softly.
Almost absentmindedly.
Like the song remembered for me
what I no longer had the strength to hold.
Because love like that doesn’t disappear.
It lingers.
Not with promises.
But with presence.
It hums in the quiet.
It flickers in the dark.
And sometimes,
when I press my fingers to the keys,
I can still feel the shape of her laughter
in the chords.
And it breaks me.
And it keeps me alive.
Featured image adapted from a photo by Claudia Soraya.
See more on Unsplash: @claudiasoraya
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