There’s a silence that exists between two people who once shared a world. Not the kind of silence that rests easy, like the quiet of dawn or the stillness of a warm room, but the kind that echoes—hollow and sharp, the absence of something that should have been and could have been.
We were strangers, even then. Strangers who knew the details of each other's faces better than the paths to our own homes. Strangers who memorized the sound of each other’s laughter but not the weight of each other's fears. It wasn’t love, not in the way that lasts. But it felt like something close enough to hold onto when the nights got too dark and the world outside pressed in too hard.
Do you remember? I do.
I remember the light bleeding through the window as you drove too fast, the radio blasting the songs we never listened to, and the way your hands gripped the wheel like you were afraid of letting go. I remember the way your voice cracked on certain words, how you’d pause like you didn’t trust yourself to finish the sentence. I filled those pauses with dreams, thinking maybe I could make us whole if I held on hard enough.
But strangers don’t hold on. They pass by, like fleeting shadows on the same empty street. We wore the same skin and spoke in tongues only we could understand, but the language of our hearts never quite aligned. You were a home I couldn’t step into. I was a door you couldn’t bring yourself to close.
Sometimes I wonder if you still think about that night. The one where the stars hung low and the world felt infinite. Do you remember how I laughed too loud, trying to fill the space between us? How the air felt heavy, like we both knew what was coming but neither of us dared to say it?
I still see you in my dreams, standing on the edge of something I can’t reach. Your back is to me, and I call your name, but the sound dies in my throat. You look over your shoulder just once, and then you’re gone.
We were never meant to stay. Some people are just passing through. Strangers, pretending they belong in each other’s lives for a moment. And that’s okay.
Still, when the nights stretch long and the silence settles deep, I wonder: if we met again now, would I recognize you? Or would we just pass by, two strangers on the same empty street?
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