Echoes of Yesterday

Part 4 - The Distance We Carry

The rain was still falling when I stumbled through the front door, the cold dampness clinging to my skin. My father's voice greeted me, sharp with concern.

"How could you be so careless? Not checking your phone, not telling us where you were?"
His words sliced through the air, heavy with the weight of worry.

My mother stood beside him, her arms crossed. Though she said nothing, her silence spoke louder than any words she could've uttered. It felt like a wall between us, built from their unspoken fears and the storm of emotions that had followed me home.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice small and strained.

"I didn't mean to worry you. It won't happen again."

The apology tasted hollow in my mouth, sinking like a stone in the tense quiet of the room. Their concern pressed down on me like a physical weight, a burden I couldn't shake off.

Without waiting for a response, I dragged myself upstairs, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up with me. Each step felt heavier than the last, like I was carrying the weight of all the moments I couldn't change. I collapsed onto my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, feeling the chaos of the day churn inside me like a storm that refused to pass.

The city outside hummed with life—cars honking, people shouting, a distant echo of everything that kept moving forward, even when I felt like I couldn't.

I closed my eyes, willing the memories of the day to fade, but they replayed themselves like a film reel, over and over in my mind. His face—the man at the bar—flashed before me, a mystery wrapped in warmth and fleeting comfort. And then there was him—the one who was missing—his absence still gnawing at the edges of my thoughts, a wound I couldn't stop prodding.

Somewhere in the haze of exhaustion, I drifted off, my dreams a patchwork of voices and images that didn't quite fit together. I woke to the shrill sound of my alarm, groggy and disoriented, unsure of when I had even fallen asleep.

As I fumbled to silence the alarm, his voice drifted into my thoughts, faint yet clear: "You look cute in that dress." It was something he had once said, a memory tied to a playful moment shared over Snapchat maps and Bitmoji smiles. We used to trace the distance between us, mapping out every mile like explorers charting a course through unfamiliar seas.

I picked up my artsy diary from the floor, its pages worn and stained from too many nights spent pouring my heart onto paper. I tried to write, but the words wouldn't come. All I could think about was his voice, echoing in the space between us, growing fainter with each passing day.

The weight of it—the distance, the silence—felt suffocating. He never quite understood why I struggled to communicate the way he wanted. He used to say, "Communication builds bonds, but silence tears them apart," as if every unspoken word was another thread unraveling us.

In his eyes, my silence was a refusal—a choice to keep him at arm's length. But what he couldn't see was the war I waged within myself. For me, every conversation felt like walking a tightrope over my deepest fears. I wanted to reach out, to share every thought, every feeling, but something always held me back. The words that came so easily to him felt tangled inside me, knotted by the weight of my own uncertainties—and my parents' scrutiny.

He didn't know the full story. He couldn't. My parents watched me closely, always wondering who I was talking to, what I was hiding. They'd already suspected too much, and I couldn't risk them knowing the truth about us. Every message I sent, every phone call I made was a risk I wasn't sure I could afford. I'd learned to be careful—deleting our texts, clearing any trace of our conversations—because the fear of being caught loomed larger than the comfort of sharing my heart.

He believed that if we just talked more, everything would fall back into place, that the gaps between us could be filled with words. But what he saw as a simple solution—a bridge built from conversations—felt, to me, like an impossible distance. "Why don't you ever tell me what's on your mind?" he'd ask, his frustration clear, the hurt in his eyes unmistakable.

It wasn't that I didn't want to. I just... couldn't. My parents were always there, watching, and questioning. Every time I tried to open up, it felt like I was exposing a part of myself not only to him but to them as well. And that terrified me. I couldn't let them know how deep my feelings went, how much of my heart was tied to him.

He believed communication could save us, but for me, it wasn't that simple. I was trapped—between wanting to let him in and needing to keep him hidden from a world that wouldn't understand. And in the end, my silence spoke louder than I ever could.

"All Lies, he said, 

All Love of Losing, I replied."

But tonight, with the rain pattering softly against my window, the fear seemed to quiet, replaced by something else—hope. I picked up my pen and began to write, not about the sorrow or the distance, but about the moments we had shared, the laughter, the connection that still flickered between us like a fading light.

Perhaps tomorrow would bring a chance to bridge the gap, to reach out and feel close again, even if only for a moment. I didn't know what the future held, but as I closed my diary, I let myself believe that somehow, in some way, we would find our way back to each other.

The rain continued to fall, a steady rhythm against the window, and as I drifted back into sleep, I whispered a silent wish to the stars beyond the clouds: for him to come back, for the distance to disappear, for us to feel whole again.