A Short story
By the time the last intern left and the lights dimmed themselves into a soft hum, he was still there. At his desk. Staring at a spreadsheet that hadn’t changed in hours. The cursor blinked like it was waiting for him to confess something.
He didn’t.
To the untrained eye, he looked committed. Focused. Maybe even indispensable. But those who knew him—really knew him—would recognize the signs. The loosened tie, the untouched reheat of dinner, the three draft emails that would never be sent.
Home was only twenty minutes away, but it felt like a betrayal to go there now. The silence in that room was too honest. At least here, among potted plants gasping under flickering LEDs and the soft whirr of a server room, he could pretend the emptiness was professional.
No one suspects heartbreak when you’re sitting in Excel.
She had a laugh that used to annoy him. Too loud. Always at the wrong moments. Like when he was trying to be serious or quiet or stoic. She’d laugh right through it, like she knew it was all just theatre.
And maybe it was.
She had this habit of thinking out loud. He hated it at first. Later, he found himself pausing longer in conversations with others, waiting for them to unravel the way she did. No one else did. Most people come pre-packaged. She arrived as a work-in-progress, scribbled notes in the margins, edits pending.
That made her feel real.
But real things ask for space. They ask to be seen back. And that’s where he ran out of language.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care. That’s the mistake everyone makes. The cold ones, the quiet ones—they’re misread all the time. People think if you’re not crying in public or shouting in doorways, you don’t feel deeply. But he did.
He just… processed slower. Like rainwater filtering through stone.
He once read that some people hide their feelings in plain sight, disguised as routine. And that made sense to him. He showed up every day. He remembered how she liked her coffee (one sugar, almond milk, stir twice, never shake). He kept the plants alive. Mostly.
But when it came to saying things out loud—the real things—he fumbled.
When the rumor started circling around her, something sharp twisted in his gut. Not because it surprised him. But because he knew it would hurt her. And that’s the one thing he couldn’t bear. So he didn’t say a word.
It wasn’t loyalty. It wasn’t cowardice. It was this misguided idea that shielding her from pain was the same as loving her.
He doesn’t know if he was right.
What he does know is that she stopped texting with punctuation. Then stopped texting altogether.
Most nights now, he rereads old messages like they’re directions he forgot to follow. Her words felt deliberate. Built, not thrown together. Like she knew one day he’d need them, not to reply, but just to remember she meant them.
He never replies. It’s been months. Maybe longer.
But he stays late at work. Pretends he’s swamped. Let’s the janitor vacuum around his shoes.
It’s easier than going home to a room where nothing has been moved since she left.
He doesn’t know what kind of love this is. The kind that doesn’t call. Doesn’t beg. Doesn’t chase.
Maybe it’s the kind that stays behind. Quietly. In the very places she used to fill.
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