Lina left the next morning.
No note. No announcement. She packed a small suitcase, turned off her phone, and caught a train to the coast. She told herself it wasn’t running—it was breathing. It was remembering who she was before Ethan became her gravity.
She found a small guesthouse near the sea and spent her days wandering through markets, reading on quiet benches, sketching the waves. Her journal remained closed for once. She didn’t want to write about him. Not this time.
At night, she lay in bed and replayed the moment his hand slipped from hers. The apology. The space between them.
Was it rejection or regret?
But she didn’t call. And neither did he.
---
Back in the city, Ethan noticed her absence like a missing button on a favorite coat. Small, quiet, but maddeningly obvious.
He stopped by her place once. Knocked. Waited. No answer.
He asked Eliza where she’d gone.
“She needed space,” Eliza said, crossing her arms. “And maybe you did too.”
Ethan didn’t argue. He just nodded.
Mira noticed too.
“You’ve been distracted,” she said one evening as they sat on her balcony. “More than usual.”
Ethan didn’t answer right away.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Mira asked.
“Just for a while.”
Mira looked at him carefully. “Do you love her?”
He flinched. “I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem,” Mira said gently. “You don’t know. But she does.”
Ethan didn’t sleep well that night.
---
On the fourth day, Lina stood at the water’s edge, wind tugging her hair, salt kissing her skin. She thought about all the versions of love she’d seen—loud, messy, soft, certain.
What she had with Ethan wasn’t love in the way people spoke about it.
It was love in fragments. In quiet favors. In stolen glances.
In almosts.
And almosts didn’t keep you warm.
---
When she returned to the city, everything felt quieter. Her apartment looked untouched. She checked her phone—no missed calls. One message from Ethan, sent two days ago.
Ethan: I hope you’re okay.
She didn’t reply.
Instead, she sat by her window, lit a candle, and wrote in her journal.
Dear Ethan,
I’m sorry too.
But this ache I carry isn’t your fault. It’s mine—for hoping, for misreading, for holding on to something that never really belonged to me.
I’m learning now. To step away. To breathe without waiting for your call.
Maybe one day, I’ll thank you for the silence. Maybe it’s what I needed most.
She closed the journal and finally—finally—let herself exhale.
