Please come back to me. –Liana
Liana
I didn’t sleep. Not really.
I closed my eyes. Counted backward from a hundred. Forward to a thousand. Listened to the wind. The ticking clock. The silence.
But my body never relaxed.
I just lay there. Eyes open in the dark. Staring at the ceiling like it might give me a sign.
At some point, I pulled the blanket tighter around me, curled into a ball.
His pillow still smelled like him.
It didn’t help.
It made it worse.
The sun came up too soon.
The room was too quiet.
I sat up slowly, legs stiff, head heavy. My phone was still in my hand. I checked it before I even breathed.
No new messages.
I unlocked the screen anyway. Scrolled up.
His last text was short.
“Be good.”
No emoji. No voice note. Just that.
And a timestamp from yesterday at 4:18 a.m.
I pressed my thumb against the screen like that would make more words appear.
Nothing happened.
A knock on the door made me flinch.
I wasn’t expecting anyone.
I padded barefoot down the hall and opened the door to find Alex standing there with a takeout bag and her usual “don’t argue with me” face.
“I brought carbs,” she said. “Also, a completely non-judgmental presence. And coffee.”
I blinked. “You didn’t have to come.”
She gave me a look. “Liana, if you actually think I’m going to let you sit here alone, waiting for a man who’s halfway into gangland with no backup and too much ego, you’re even more sleep-deprived than you look.”
I stepped back silently to let her in.
We sat at the kitchen table.
Or rather. she sat for breakfast.
I just picked at a croissant, hands idle, mind not here.
She didn’t push. Didn’t ask questions.
She just handed me coffee, took a bite of her sandwich, and said, “I’ll hang out a bit. Pretend I have nothing better to do.”
I nodded.
Grateful. But still floating.
After she left, the quiet came back.
I thought maybe I’d try to work.
I sat down at my desk, opened my laptop, and stared at the blinking cursor in my lesson notes.
I got as far as typing “Warm-up activity:” before my fingers froze.
A slideshow was still open from my last session—vocabulary on describing people.
The slide with Elias’s face photoshopped on a model had made me laugh when I used it.
Now I couldn’t even look at it.
I closed the laptop.
Let my head fall into my hands.
The silence pressed harder than any sound ever could.
It was too much.
Too loud.
Too heavy.
I stood up, paced the room, sat again. Tried reading. Tried watching something. Tried folding laundry that didn’t exist.
Everything felt pointless.
Eventually, I sat on the edge of my bed, phone in hand, and opened our message thread again.
I typed:
“I miss you.”
Paused.
Backspaced.
Typed:
“Come home safe.”
Stared at it.
Then deleted the whole thing and locked the screen.
I hugged my knees to my chest, tucked my chin in, and breathed as quietly as I could.
I didn’t cry.
Not yet.
I couldn’t.
Because if I started, I might not stop.
So I just sat there, heart too full and hands too empty, thinking the same thing over and over and over.
Don’t vanish.
Please.
Not you.
