The Weight of Silence

Words. They slip through my fingers like sand, elusive and fickle. I reach for them, but they scatter before I can shape them into meaning.

I have so much to say, yet I sit in the car seat, mute. My soon-to-be ex-boyfriend grips the present I gave him before uttering my last words so tight his knuckles pale, his breath uneven. I glare at him, though I don’t know why. It’s not anger I feel. Or maybe it is.

I started this. I think we should break up.

The sentence had fallen from my lips as if someone else had spoken it. As if I were an observer, watching my own sabotage unfold. I don’t even know if I meant it. Not exactly. I want to break up. I don’t.

Taylor has been talking ever since. Pleading, reasoning, explaining. His voice is an ocean, ebbing and flowing, reaching for me, but I am stone. I want to go home. To make tea. To pretend this night never happened.

“Was it something I did?” His voice wavers. “Is there someone else?”

I flinch. His question hovers in the air above us like a ghost haunting me from the beginning of my curse. Of course, there isn’t someone else.

I shake my head. But the words–I cannot give him the words.

No, this isn’t about him. It never was.

I break up with everyone on our one-year anniversary. It’s a pattern, a habit. Not one I plan, but one that happens, inevitably. A curse. At the twelve-month mark, something in me recoils. I can’t stand them anymore. Can’t stand this–the expectations, the weight of love, the way they look at me like I am something precious.

Taylor is no exception. And yet, he is.

Tears streak his cheeks, his breath shuddering between words I barely hear. I watch him, studying the rawness of his face, the wetness on his skin. He loves me. It’s there in the way he looks at me, in the way his voice trembles as he says my name.

Why?

Why does he love me? Do I love him?

I must not, or I wouldn’t be doing this. Though, I know I love him.

“I thought we were soulmates,” he whispers.

The word hangs in the air between us, a black ghost curling in the dim light of the car.

Soulmates.

He never believed in them. He told me that months ago, scoffing at the idea. And yet here he is, searching for something to hold on to, something to make sense of the unraveling.

I want to tell him I don’t know why I do this. That it isn’t him. That I want to love him as he loves me, want to let him in.

But the words are lost inside me, swallowed by something heavy and unnamable.

I think about the night ahead. A comedy to drown out the silence? A playlist of breakup songs to wallow in? A quiet dinner with my sister where I pretend nothing is wrong?

Taylor’s face crumples. His hands lift to cover his face, his shoulders shaking. I watch, still, unmoved. A statue of indifference.

What’s wrong with me?

Why don’t I feel anything?

I do love him. Don’t I? I brought him a present. Yesterday, when we planned our anniversary dinner, I wasn’t thinking of breaking up. I wasn’t counting down to destruction. For the first time, I thought maybe–maybe–this would be different. That Taylor would be the one to break the cycle.

But I ruined it. Just like I always do.

Maybe that’s why I end things. Because deep down, I know they deserve better. Maybe I break them before they break me.

I try to speak, but the words catch in my throat. A sigh escapes instead, hollow and unsatisfying. Taylor looks up, his blue eyes too bright, too full of something I can’t return. He wants me to say something–anything. I expect it from myself, too.

But I don’t.

“Don’t you love me?”

The question strikes like lightning, electric and searing.

Of course, I do.

The words remain unspoken. But my eyes betray me, softening as they meet his. He sees it. I know he does. And yet, it is not enough. He loves me more than I love him.

Why?

Why does he love me? Do I even love me?

His hands drop from his face, and for the first time, he looks exhausted. Spent.

“I just don’t understand…” His voice is raw, stripped bare. “I thought we were happy together.”

The weight in my chest coils tighter, suffocating. My thoughts are a tangled mess of knots, pulling, twisting. My mind is fogged, my throat choked, my heart–a thing that is small and big all at once, pressing against my ribs, demanding to be heard.

“Can I hug you? One last time?”

One last time.

Another ghost left in the air.

I don’t want to break up with Taylor.

I open my mouth to tell him exactly that, but nothing comes.

Instead, I nod.

He pulls me in, his warmth enveloping me. I wrap my arms around his waist, my fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. Why am I doing this? Why can’t I say it? Why can’t I tell him that I want to grow old with him, wrinkled and gray by the seaside?

I tighten my grip. It’s all I can give him.

He pulls back, just slightly. “Goodbye, Noah.”

The moment fractures. Reality shifts.

Goodbye.

No.

My breath catches, my heart lurches, my body registers the mistake before my mind can. He steps out of the car, walking away without a glance, without a wave.

I watch him leave, unopened present in his hand. I tremble. My face is wet. My chest a thunderstorm.

What have I done?

I should chase after him. Tell him I didn’t mean it. Tell him I love him. But I sit, still and silent, as the weight of my own destruction settles around me.

Why do I always destroy the things that matter? Perhaps I’m destined to break everything I love. I’m truly cursed.

His absence is a ghost in the seat beside me, his embrace still wrapped around my skin like a phantom limb.

Why did Taylor love me so much?

The ghosts in the car press in, suffocating me, until my thoughts unravel and slip away.

Why?

Why can’t I love myself?

Echoes of his love linger beyond the limits of this car. I reach out, but the silence swallows me whole. My silence–sharp as a blade–cuts through my chest, leaving only the weight of self-loathing in its wake. I try to hold onto it, to make sense of it, but it slips through my fingers like sand, vanishing before I can give it shape.