I met him on a winter afternoon, when the light faded over the gray sea. We didn’t rush into each other like the December winds, but slowly, like the last drops of coffee lingering in a white porcelain cup. He was twelve years older than me, with eyes full of sorrow, as if he had seen too much of this world.
I don’t remember exactly when I started loving him. Maybe it was the first time he touched my hand, when that warmth seeped into my skin like something inevitable. Or maybe it was when he talked about old books, forgotten melodies, and dreams he had long abandoned.
“I have a wife.”
He said it on a drizzly night, while we sat on a worn-out bench in a dimly lit café. His voice was light, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I wasn’t surprised. A man like him, with the way he listened intently, with the way he gently traced the rim of his coffee cup before taking a sip, could never be truly alone. Yet, I still felt my heart plummet into an endless void.
I had thought about leaving. There were hundreds of ways to end a wrongful relationship, but none that could make a heart hurt any less. I didn’t want to be his shadow, the one he sought only in empty moments. But every time I thought of cutting ties, he would call me. A simple message: “What are you doing?”—and I would be drawn back again. I was like someone standing at the edge of an abyss, knowing that one more step would mean falling, yet unable to turn away.
I never asked him for anything. No future, no promises. I knew he would never leave his family, and I never wished for him to. Some things, no matter how beautiful, can only exist in the dark. But in some strange way, my heart had grown accustomed to waiting, to fleeting meetings and quiet goodbyes. Sometimes, I wondered if I loved him or just the loneliness he carried.
One day, he stopped messaging. I waited. A day, a week, a month. The silence between us felt like an unfinished melody. I knew, in the end, I was only a passing breeze in his life, momentary and then gone.
I walked down an empty street, the cold wind cutting through my skin. I saw my shadow stretching under the streetlights, solitary and silent. Perhaps, from the very beginning, I was only someone who came after—someone with no right to ask, no right to hold on, and no right to remember.
