Three days later

It didn’t begin with you, but with the way I became quiet while something in me had already been trying to move outward.

We sat next to each other as if there was nothing to decide. And yet I gave up direction before it had even appeared. You didn’t push. You waited. I filled the space.

Later that night, when the city became quieter, your message came. Not a question. Something that sounded like one. I replied without checking.

I remember the moment I sent you my location. As if I was securing something. Now it feels more like a quiet betrayal. Of something I hadn’t said yet.

Your presence was precise. No big gestures. More like a way of seeing that felt like attention.

You knew when I hesitated. You also knew how to move past it.

Your hand on my neck.

And that scent barely there, more memory than something tangible. I searched for it later. On my clothes. On my hands. I still don’t know what I was looking for.

I started explaining myself before anything had been asked. It was easier than being misunderstood later.

I told you things I wouldn’t have told myself like that.

What I got in return had no shape. No promise.

Just that brief moment where something in me became still. As if pressure was released that I didn’t know I was carrying.

I took that for closeness.

Now I see: I wasn’t there.

The next morning everything was back in place. You left. Without leaving anything open.

I stayed with the feeling that something had begun. Without a beginning.

I waited.

I built my days around possible answers. Adjusted sentences. Measured silence.

I moved so something could remain that had never decided to stay.

At some point it became tighter. Not visible. More like a room shrinking while you keep telling yourself it’s enough.

I only noticed when I became louder than I wanted to be.

The sentence wasn’t bad. Just misplaced.

You took it as proof.

Then it went quiet.

Three days. Maybe more.

Time loses shape when nothing comes back.

I sat there, looking at my phone as if something could be forced if I just did nothing long enough.

At some point I started speaking. Quietly. Not to you.

Not really to myself either.

There was nothing ceremonial about it. More like something you once learned and can’t unlearn.

I formed sentences that sounded like apologies without knowing what for.

It wasn’t about you anymore.

It was about keeping the movement going.

One of those nights I stayed awake without a reason I could explain.

I spoke. Quietly. Like an alignment. Like a prayer.

Nothing came back.

And still, I continued.

That’s when I understood how long I’ve believed that closeness only exists when I give something away.

That I disappear as soon as it gets quiet.

The next day I didn’t write.

Not because I didn’t want to.

But because I saw what happens in me when nothing happens.

It was uncomfortable.

Almost like withdrawal. Without a substance.

Just the impulse to do something. Anything.

I didn’t act on it.

I waited.

Without waiting for you.

That was new.

By the evening nothing was resolved. Nothing clear.

Just a small shift.

I didn’t explain myself.

And I still stayed.

Samu