He hadn’t touched her side of the bed.

  Not because he thought she’d come back.

  He knew she wouldn’t.

  They’d said goodbye.

  Out loud. In words.

  But somehow, the sheets still felt like they were waiting.

  And smoothing them out would mean making peace with the warmth of her body, the scent of her hair, the shape she left behind like an imprint.

  Most mornings, he lay there with his eyes fixed on the ceiling fan, watching it spin like time too afraid to move forward.

  Sometimes, he reached for his phone, thumb hovering over her name in a thread gone cold.

  She hadn’t blocked him.

  Some part of him wished she had.

  No new messages. No new signs.

  But the ritual mattered.

  Something had to.

  He thought about that night.

  About how she kissed him like a goodbye she wasn’t ready to say.

  About how her laugh was too forced that evening, like she was reading from a script.

  He showered. Dressed. Avoided the mirror.

  Black shirt. Black jacket. Shoes she once said made him look too “put together.”

  “You’re not put together,” she’d told him, smirking. “You’re just good at hiding how fucked up you are.”

  He didn’t argue then.

  He couldn’t now.

  As he dried off, he did his best to stop his eyes from wandering.

  The apartment was still too full of her.

  Boots still by the door.

  A single earring still on the sink.

  Her shitty lighter tucked beside the window.

  The air still smelled faintly like her shampoo, sharp citrus and static.

  She had once told him it reminded her of home.

  He laughed.

  She didn’t.

  “I don’t like soft things,” she said. “They always pretend they’ll last.”

  That was her way.

  Truth without tenderness.

  And still, he missed her. Every rough edge.

  Even now.

  Even after goodbye.

  The sky outside was ash grey, rain smearing the city's smoke and haze.

  The train rolled in, exactly on time.

  Cold, precise, indifferent.

  The city didn’t care who stayed or went.

  Neon signs flickered above him, casting pink and cyan halos on puddles and regret.

  The doors hissed open.

  He took their seat. Back row, window. The place where she used to tuck her legs under herself and watch the city blur.

  She’d always sit on the inside.

  Like she trusted him to keep her between the world and whatever came next.

  He stared at the window now, watching a reflection he barely recognized.

  They met when he was already slipping.

  Skipping lectures, sleeping through mornings, and stringing together excuses had become a daily occurrence.

  Uni was supposed to mean momentum, structure, becoming.

  Instead, it had became a spiral.

  Days blurred.

  Attendance vanished.

  Deadlines meant nothing.

  And then she appeared. Somewhere between a night bus and a bar with no name, looking like a person who didn’t need saving and would hate you for trying.

  He followed her anyway.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  They met up in pieces after that.

  At night.

  Between trams.

  On rooftops and behind noodle shops and in stairwells that echoed more than they should’ve.

  She never stayed long.

  But when she did, it felt like a glitch in time, like the city paused to watch her lean against the railing and complain about the world.

  She called him “soft.” Not as an insult, but as a diagnosis.

  “I mean it, you feel too much,” she said once, tapping his chest. “It’ll leak out one day.”

  “I don’t mind,” he replied, and meant it. Because he thought loving her could solve it all.

  The train hissed and slowed, the synthetic voice announcing a stop he didn’t care about. He stayed on, watching the silhouettes shuffle off into the fog. One of them had her posture. That subtle slouch, like she was bracing for disappointment. He blinked, and it wasn’t her.

  Of course it wasn’t her.

  She hated umbrellas.

  Said they got in the way of her smokes.

  But she used his once, just once, because it was raining hard enough to drown.

  She took it without asking, spun it like a weapon, and grinned.

  “Careful, don’t make it too easy to like you,” she teased. “I might actually stick around.”

  That was the night she stayed till sunrise.

  Curled into him like regret in slow motion.

  She talked about her father for the first time.

  About Berlin.

  About a scar on her thigh she got from climbing a fence she shouldn’t have.

  And then, right as the sky turned pink, she asked him if he’d still want her if she stopped being interesting.

  He didn’t answer. Just kissed her shoulder. Thought silence could mean yes.

  She probably took it as no.

  At the next stop, he stepped out.

  The rain had begun to pour now.

  But he didn’t mind.

  He needed the cold.

  Needed the way the rain clung to skin like shame.

  The streets glowed with pink and teal and electric lies. He passed bars full of noise. Lovers holding each other like it was the last time. Friends arguing over taxis. Girls with glitter eyeshadow and broken heels. Boys pretending not to cry under flickering signs.

  As usual, the city didn’t sleep. It just forgot.

  He stopped at the corner where she’d danced in the rain once.

  Full-on spun in circles like a scene from a movie she’d never admit watching. He had originally stood under the shop awning, wet cigarette in hand, watching her like a fool.

  Then she dragged him into it all, spinning like they were kids, like they weren’t soaked, like love could be found in puddles.

  He’d never danced in public before. Still haven't since.

  When they finally came back under cover, dripping, eyes wild, she said,

  “You look like you want this to last forever.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  It took him a lot to say that.

  She didn’t answer. Just bit her lip and kissed him like an apology.

  Color bled from every storefront and billboard.

  Bright, artificial, almost beautiful, until you realized it meant nothing.

  Just a hundred different ways to distract the lonely.

  Purple signs flickered beside red lanterns. Holograms smiled promises no one believed.

  Laughter echoed from open bars where people swayed under synthetic light, their joy loud, somehow sounding rehearsed.

  He pulled his coat tighter as the wind blew past him.

  A couple passed him, fingers laced, faces glowing blue from a phone screen.

  The girl laughed, shrill and honest. The guy kissed her cheek.

  He looked away.

  Not out of jealousy, he wasn’t naive enough for that.

  He was just tired.

  She had once called him just as he was about to fall asleep, saying she needed to hear his voice.

  “I’m losing it,” she whispered.

  “You’re okay,” he whispered back.

  “No,” she said. “But I like that you think I could be.”

  He’d stayed on the line till she fell asleep.

  Now his phone was quiet.

  Just static in his head.

  A bus wheezed past. Its digital banner blinked destinations in languages he didn’t speak. Behind the tinted windows, strangers sat with heads leaned against glass, mouths half-open in sleep or boredom.

  She used to ride buses like that.

  Said they gave her time to think. Said she liked the motion, whatever that meant.

  He wondered if she was on one now. Wondered if someone else was sitting next to her, close enough to brush shoulders, to pretend none of it had weight.

  He passed the noodle shop where she used to burn her tongue on broth because patience was never one of her virtues.

  He had warned her.

  She smiled, eyes gleaming with defiance. “Pain just means it’s real,” she said.

  Funnily enough, he couldn’t recall a single time she finished her noodles.

  He found himself at the train station again.

  He didn’t remember walking there.

  Didn’t remember how late it was.

  Just the rain. The hum of vending machines. The sound of his breath.

  All too loud in his ears.

  He sat on the bench. Head down. Hands cold. Everything inside him hollowing out, one memory at a time.

  She had been a storm.

  No warning. No pattern.

  She’d hit him in the chest and torn open everything he thought was anchored.

  And he’d loved it.

  Loved her.

  Loved the destruction.

  Even now, soaked and silent, he would do it again.

  That was the worst part.

  The next train pulled in.

  He didn’t get on.

  Just stared at his reflection in the dark window. Thinner. Paler. Eyes sunken under weeks of unslept nights.

  She would’ve told him to snap out of it.

  “Come on, don’t mope around like that,” she once said. “It’s a waste of such a handsome face.”

  He had laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it sounded like something someone who stayed would say.

  He walked home under the rain.

  Didn’t rush. Didn’t flinch.

  He let it fall.

  He chuckled as another memory floated into his headspace.

  It was such a throwaway moment, barely more than a breath between jokes.

  He’d said something dumb.

  She rolled her eyes, smacked his arm playfully, then paused. “You know,” she said, lips quirking, “your laugh is kind of ridiculous. But I like it.”

  Then she leaned in and kissed him, slow and soft.

  He hadn’t thought much of his laugh before.

  Didn’t even know he had a distinct one.

  But after that, every time she made him laugh, he let it out freely, like it was a gift she had given him permission to keep.

  He wondered if anyone else would ever notice it again.

  That night, the apartment felt like a recording.

  Every sound a playback. Every silence a loop.

  He lay on the bed, on his side only, pretending he couldn’t still feel the warmth on hers.

  The ceiling fan spun overhead.

  And he tried not to remember the way she’d kissed him that last night.

  Like she was pressing something into his mouth she knew he wouldn’t keep.