INVISIBLE LOVE

POV: Bonnie.

February, 2026.

Something in the air felt different today.

It was dry, unusually dry for this time of the year. And it was silent.

The long aisles inside and the open parking lot outside the supermarket bore a completely deserted appearance. At close to midnight, that would hardly be a surprise, except that this was the busiest city in the world. A city that never sleeps.

It was too deserted. Too silent. Too unnatural for a supermarket of this size and at this location to be completely empty even at midnight.

Did the unusually dry air have something to do with it?

I sighed, and slowly traipsed over to the shelves containing rows of kitchen spices. Was I looking for something in particular?

I can’t remember.

Looking around, I couldn’t spot a single salesperson nearby. Did I need help with something? Probably not.

It’s just that the eerie silence … and the vast emptiness … seemed to bother me. I guess that’s what happens when you go shopping, not to buy something, but to hear the hum and the buzz of a city you were so used to growing up, and which you have missed for more than a decade.

Silence like this crawls under my skin and gives me the jitters.

My sister doesn’t feel like this, despite being born minutes after I did. She has reason not to. She is a senior editor at a publishing house in Manhattan, known for her sharp eye and even sharper wit. She lives in a small but tastefully cluttered apartment in Brooklyn, with walls lined with books and tiny plants she named after poets.

I am nothing like her, though. I spend only my Sundays in bookstores, my evenings taking long walks in the countryside where I live, and my nights wondering — occasionally, guiltily — what would’ve happened if I had stayed back in New York City.

I sighed. I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past midnight. And I had no idea where I’d be headed to after this shopping stint.

That’s when I caught movement down the aisle. There was someone else, yards away, standing in front of the same shelves … wondering … contemplating …

Good. I was not alone. There was at least one more shopper here tonight. And he was shopping for kitchen spices, too!

What are the odds of that happening?

I glanced at him through the corner of my eye. Nothing but plain curiosity made me do so. His crumpled, worn-out jeans and his faded hooded sweatshirt made him look oddly out of place in this swanky supermarket at this time of night.

His hair was unkempt, too. And he had thick stubble on his face that was more salt than pepper. And his face —

Wait! His face … his face looked familiar.

Have I seen him before? I took a couple of slow, steady steps in his direction, keeping my gaze on the shelves all the while, but glancing at him periodically.

Yeah. It’s him. I wasn’t sure earlier. It'd been a long time since I’d last seen him. But …

I took a couple more steps forward and waved at him awkwardly. Short, sharp waves of my hand, hoping to draw his attention.

He did notice. And turned to face me.

“Jay?” I smiled sheepishly.

He raised his brows, scanned my face for a while, and took out his hands from his pockets.

“Hi, Bonnie!”

“Hi!” I muttered awkwardly. Not knowing what to say next.

He looked so different!

“Oh, my God!” he gasped and grinned.

“Um …” I chuckled and shifted my gaze from his face to the shelves.

“How are you?” he asked, his voice as warm and gentle as I remember it.

“I am, um … I am good. Really good. And you?”

“I’m good, too,” he smiled meekly.

Silence. It dropped again like a shroud as unexpectedly and as awkwardly as my bumping into Jay tonight.

“It’s been like … what, fifteen years?” I muttered after a while, desperate to break the invisible wall of silence that seemed to have suddenly appeared between us.

“Yeah. Fifteen years and three months,” Jay cleared his throat, evading direct eye contact. “How … uh … how are you? Did I ask that already?”

“Yeah … you did,” I murmured.

“Okay …” he squirmed a bit, as he used to do so often in the past, every time he found himself at a loss for words.

“But I’m happy to tell you again,” I said.

“You’re good?” his eyes lit up this time, though only slightly.

“Yeah.”

“Great! So you, uh … Um, I’ve … you …” he stuttered in that familiar adorable manner I still remember. “Are you living here now? Or, are you …?”

“Oh! No, no,” I shook my head hastily. “I’m — I’m here to see my sister.”

“Okay. Yeah.”

“You remember, I’m sure,” I said. “Yeah.”

“Em … Emilie, right?” he mumbled again, even though he knew he was right.

“Yeah. Getting … cooking … stuff. Just …” I pointed at my half-empty cart, though there was no need to.

“Mm-hmm!” he nodded.

“Some grated ginger, capers, and ice cream,” I added sheepishly, unsure of why I was explaining myself.

He smiled, squirmed a bit like before, and shifted his gaze rapidly between my shopping cart and my face.

“Sorry!” he forced his lips shut. “I didn’t brush my teeth!”

I chuckled hesitantly.

“Um, that’s why I’m licking my teeth a lot right now,” he added, trying to explain himself, even though he didn’t need to.

He chuckled in awkward embarrassment. Or perhaps it was nervousness — not knowing what to say and how to say it.

Time does that to you.

“So, anyway, I didn’t want to hold you …” he cleared his throat after a brief pause. “Obviously, if you have stuff to do …”

“Yeah!” I don’t know why I said that. It just escaped my lips, I guess.

We were both at a loss of words. Even though having a conversation was what I needed right now to keep the deafening silence creeping under my skin.

“Cool!” he shrugged.

“Yeah, okay. Alright,” I hesitated for a second before stepping forward to give him a hug.

A light hug. The kind you do a dozen times a day when bidding goodbye to others.

“Yeah,” he opened his arms a tad apprehensively.

We hugged — awkward at first, then familiar. The kind of embrace that reminded the body of things the mind had tried to forget.

Did I hear him sigh?

Or was it my sigh echoing inside the empty chambers of my heart?

Fifteen years is a long time to forget the past. So why did my memories come rushing back again during that three-second embrace?

Maybe it wasn’t what we said to each other tonight, but what we didn’t, or couldn’t, that made those memories come alive.

The dry feeling in my throat was back. And I knew it wasn’t going away anytime soon.