A story called us

I hadn't slept.

The night had passed without me noticing, or perhaps I had noticed every second of it. I wasn't sure anymore. All I knew was that I had spent hours sitting on my bed, staring at the same spot on the wall, trying to understand how a single night could change everything.

My phone lay beside me.

I hadn't touched it in hours.

I was afraid of what I might find if I did.

And I was even more afraid of finding nothing.

Outside my bedroom window, the sky was slowly changing colour. The darkness was giving way to a pale morning, and somewhere in the distance, a bird began to sing.

I hated how ordinary everything seemed.The world had no idea that something inside me had broken. The sun was rising, people were getting ready for work, and someone somewhere was probably laughing at a silly joke.

How could they?

How could the world continue as though nothing had happened?

I lowered my eyes to my hands.They were resting quietly in my lap, perfectly still. I turned them over, studying my palms as though I might find an explanation written somewhere in the lines.

There was nothing.

Just my hands.

The same hands that had once held his.

I swallowed and looked away.Don't.

I didn't know whether I was telling myself not to cry, not to think about him, or not to remember the things I wished I could forget.

Perhaps all three.

The alarm went off at seven.

The sudden sound made me flinch.

I reached for my phone and silenced it before it could ring again. For a moment, my thumb hovered over the screen.

His name wasn't there.

Of course it wasn't.I locked the phone and placed it face down on the mattress.

Then I stood up.

I couldn't stay in bed forever.

That was what people did when they were sick, and I wasn't sick. I didn't have a fever or a headache or any visible reason to cancel my plans.

There was nothing wrong with me that anyone else could see.And perhaps that was the cruelest part.

I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The water was too cold at first, so I adjusted the temperature and stepped beneath it.

I stood there longer than necessary, letting the water run over my face.

I had always thought that crying would make things easier.That once the tears came, the heaviness in my chest would finally have somewhere to go.

But I hadn't cried.

Not properly.

There had been a few moments during the night when my eyes had burned, when my throat had tightened and I had pressed my lips together until the feeling passed.

But nothing had come out.

I didn't know whether I was too hurt to cry or too shocked to understand that I should.

When I finished showering, I dressed for work.

A white shirt. Black trousers. My usual watch.

I fastened the buttons carefully, one after another, and smoothed the fabric over my shoulders.

It was strange how easily my hands remembered what to do.

They knew how to tie my hair, how to apply moisturiser, how to find my keys. They could perform every little task without hesitation.

My heart, however, seemed to have forgotten something as simple as beating normally.

I ignored it.

I stood in front of the mirror and brushed my hair.

For a while, I simply looked at myself.

There were faint shadows beneath my eyes. My hair was a little messier than usual, and my face looked tired.

But I looked like me.

That was what I couldn't understand.

I had spent the entire night feeling as though I had been turned into someone else, someone I didn't recognise, yet my reflection refused to acknowledge the difference.

I leaned closer to the mirror.

"You're fine," I whispered.

My voice sounded unfamiliar.

I tried again.

"You're fine, Seren."

The girl in the mirror didn't look convinced.

Neither was I.

I picked up my bag and left the bathroom.

My apartment was quiet. A half-empty glass of water stood on the kitchen counter, and a book lay open on the sofa where I had abandoned it the previous evening.

Everything was exactly where I had left it.

I wished it weren't.

I wished I could walk into the living room and find the furniture rearranged, the curtains missing, the walls painted a different colour. Anything that would prove that something had changed.

Anything that would make the apartment look as different as it felt.

Instead, I stood in the middle of the room, looking at the life I had built for myself.

The little things I had bought because I liked them. The photographs on the shelf. The cushion I had once complained was too expensive but had purchased anyway because he had said it matched my sofa.

I looked away from it.

Then I picked up my keys.

I couldn't afford to be late for work.

That was the thought I held on to as I locked the door behind me.

Not What am I going to do now?

Not How could he?

Just a simple, ordinary thought about being on time.

It was easier that way.

The corridor outside my apartment smelled faintly of cleaning products. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed, followed by the sound of footsteps.

I walked towards the stairs.

My phone vibrated inside my bag, and my heart reacted before my mind could stop it.

For one ridiculous second, I wanted it to be him.

I wanted to see his name on my screen. I wanted him to tell me that there had been a misunderstanding, that last night hadn't meant what I thought it meant, that we could somehow return to the life we had known before.

I stopped on the landing and reached for my phone.

It was a message from my office group.

Someone had asked whether the morning meeting was still scheduled for ten.

I stared at the message.

Then I put my phone away.

I felt foolish for having hoped.

I felt even more foolish for knowing that, if the phone vibrated again, some part of me would still hope.

Perhaps that was what love did to you.

Or perhaps it was simply what happened when you had spent so long making someone a part of your everyday life that your mind couldn't immediately accept their absence.

You kept expecting them.

In the smallest moments.

In the spaces between one thought and another.

In the few seconds before reality caught up.

I continued downstairs.

By the time I reached the parking area, the morning sun had climbed above the buildings. The air was warm, and the concrete beneath my feet still held a little of the previous night's coolness.

My car stood in its usual spot.

I walked towards it, shifting my bag higher on my shoulder.

I was tired.

That was all.

I hadn't slept, and I hadn't eaten anything since the previous evening. Anyone would feel exhausted under those circumstances.

I could go to work, finish my tasks, return home, and sleep.

Tomorrow would be easier.

The thought arrived with such desperate certainty that I almost believed it.

I reached my car and opened my bag to look for the keys.

My fingers moved past my wallet, a packet of tissues, and the small notebook I carried everywhere.

No keys.

I searched again.

Nothing.

I could have sworn I had put them in the front pocket.

I checked it once more, pushing aside the notebook and the tangled earphones.

Still nothing.

A small, unreasonable wave of frustration rose inside me.

"Come on," I muttered.

My voice sounded thin in the quiet parking area.

I searched the main compartment of my bag, then the side pocket, then the front pocket again.

My hands were trembling.

I stopped.

For a moment, I couldn't remember what I had been looking for.

Then I saw my car door, the silver handle catching the sunlight, and the memory returned.

The keys.

I needed the keys.

I took a breath and tried to steady my hands.

It should have been easy.

It was such a small thing.

But suddenly, I couldn't seem to make my fingers cooperate, and the simple act of searching my own bag felt impossibly difficult.

My chest tightened.

I pressed a hand against it, startled by the sensation.

The air seemed thinner than it had been a moment ago.

I tried to breathe more slowly.

In.

Out.

Again.

My heartbeat grew faster.

I looked around the parking area, searching for something to focus on. A parked scooter. A crack in the concrete. A small piece of paper caught beneath a car tyre.

Ordinary things.

Solid things.

Things that existed whether I was looking at them or not.

I tried to concentrate on them.

But my thoughts kept slipping away.

Back to the night before.

Back to the words I had heard.

Back to the awful, unfamiliar feeling of realising that something I had trusted with my entire heart was no longer something I could trust at all.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Please," I whispered.

I wasn't sure who I was asking.

I only knew that I needed everything to stop for a moment.

Just a moment.

I needed the thoughts to quiet down. I needed my chest to loosen. I needed to understand how I was supposed to stand here, in the middle of an ordinary morning, and continue being the person everyone expected me to be.

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag.

I had made it through the night.

I had got out of bed.

I had dressed myself and walked downstairs.

I had done everything I was supposed to do.

Why did it feel as though I was failing at the simplest thing in the world?

My knees weakened.

I reached for the car door, but my hand slipped against the metal.

For a second, I stood there, confused by the sudden unsteadiness in my body.

Then the sunlight blurred.

The ground seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

I remember thinking that I should sit down.

I remember the strap of my bag sliding off my shoulder.

And somewhere at the edge of my fading consciousness, I remember being terribly, impossibly tired.

Not the kind of tiredness that disappeared after a good night's sleep.

The kind that came from spending an entire night trying to understand how your life could look exactly the same when everything that mattered to you had changed.

I reached for the car one last time.

My fingers found nothing to hold on to.

And then -

Everything went dark.