The table between us felt like an ocean. There was loads of things to say, but deep down I knew we had reached the finish line of us. I don’t know what words could have saved us at that point, I don’t think there was any looming secrecy, no underlying betrayal, we just were, and then we weren’t anymore. For an ending so soft, so unfamiliar, it hit like a tonne of bricks. We left the dinner as we started it, side by side, a wall of questions and silence blocking out progress.
The twilight sky was suffocating, we were a ticking time bomb. As we parted, I felt like I was still storing all the words I wanted to say in my shimmery clutch. It wasn’t only the air that was icy. I watched him make his way up the street, already missing him, before he disappeared around the corner without looking back.
I spent the next few hours consistently checking WhatsApp, hoping for a message, a solid foundation to place the unsaid contents of my emotional clutch bag. What is left at the end? What happens when we’re left treading on tiptoes because time has crumbled possibilty into two strangers on a frosty pavement? The finish line was getting closer as the hours rolled by. Time wasn’t stopping for us, but I needed it to.
He didn’t text, but time did roll by. Holding close the weight of my clutch, all I could do was wonder what could have been different if he had looked back.
