Her Bag

We landed just after noon. The air hit me the second we stepped out of the terminal, hot, wet, heavy. It clung to my skin like a second shirt, and I couldn’t stop grinning. I was here, in a new country, with the girl I loved. It felt like the start of something. Maybe the start of everything.

She nudged me with her shoulder as we waited for our bags. “Smells weird here,” she said, wrinkling her nose, but she was smiling too.

“Like adventure,” I told her, and she laughed. God, I loved that laugh. It made my chest ache in the best way.

She handed me her carry-on as we walked toward customs. “Can you take this? My shoulder’s killing me.”

Of course I took it. I’d have carried her suitcase, her purse, hell, her if she’d asked. We were a team. That’s what this trip was about being together, just us, far from everything else. No flatmates. No shifts. No alarms.

At the customs line, everything was fine, until it wasn’t.

The officer glanced at our passports. Then he looked at me. Really looked. His expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes did. A flicker of interest. Or suspicion.

“You. Come.”

I hesitated. “Sorry?”

“You come. Bag check.”

I looked at her. My girl. She stepped back, just a little.

“I’ll just… wait over here,” she said. Her voice was light, like it was nothing.

The man reached for the carry-on on my shoulder. I handed it over, confused but calm. I wasn’t worried. Why would I be? I had nothing to hide.

They took me into a smaller room. No windows. White walls. Fluorescent lights that made my head buzz. A metal table, already scarred from a hundred other stories like mine.

I tried to joke. “She always packs too much. You should’ve seen the drama about sunscreen limits.”

They didn’t smile.

They opened the bag. Piece by piece, they laid it out. Clothes. Sunglasses. Makeup. A folded pair of flip-flops. Then they ran a knife through the inner lining.

My heart slowed. My mouth went dry.

From inside, they pulled a package. Duct-taped. Compact. Heavy.

I stared at it like it might vanish if I didn’t blink. “That’s not… I don’t know what that is.”

One of them looked at me, bored. Like this was already over.

“It’s not mine,” I said. “She gave me the bag. My girlfriend.”

They kept cutting. More packages. Tightly packed. Too many.

“I didn’t know,” I said. I could hear my voice breaking. “I swear to God, I didn’t, I was just holding it for her. Please. You have to believe me.”

They didn’t answer.

I asked to call her. At first they said no. Then, after more silence and searching looks, one of them slid a phone toward me.

I dialed.

Disconnected.

No ring. No voicemail. Just silence.

I dialed again. Same thing.

I tried texting. The message bounced. I typed and retyped her name into every app I had. Instagram gone. WhatsApp. Last seen: hours ago.

My stomach flipped, cold and hollow.

“She said she’d wait,” I said, mostly to myself. “She just stepped aside, she was right behind me.”

One of the guards looked at the door, then back at me.

“She left?”

No answer. But his eyes told me everything.

In my head, I saw her slipping away through the terminal, passport in hand, eyes forward. No glance back. No hesitation. Like I was just luggage she didn’t need anymore.

And still some dumb part of me clung to the idea that it was all a mistake. That she was outside right now, pacing, freaking out, wondering why I was taking so long.

But the rest of me already knew.

She used me.

She held my face in her hands just that morning. Kissed me slow while we waited for our gate. Whispered she couldn’t believe she got so lucky. Told me she loved me.

She looked me in the eyes and told me she loved me.

And I believed her.

I remembered her watching me zip my bag that morning, her quiet smile. The way she handed me her carry-on, casual, sweet. Like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

I had plans. A life. A future I could see clearly for the first time. I wanted to teach. She said she wanted to start her own design business. We talked about kids. About getting a dog.

God. And she gave me this.

I don’t remember how long I sat there. Time peeled away, minute by minute, until I wasn’t sure if it was still today or if today had already ended.

And now they moved around me. The guards, officers, maybe even a translator or two. But their voices were underwater. The only sound that felt real was the echo in my own head: her laugh. Her voice whispering I love you on the plane. Her hand slipping the bag onto my shoulder like it was nothing.

I kept thinking: If I’d said no. If I’d asked what was inside. If I’d noticed anything, anything at all.

But I didn’t.

Because I trusted her.

Because I loved her.

I tug at my hands. They hurt. They’re bound. I can’t stop them from shaking, rope cutting into my skin. But it’s not the rope that weighs the most. Not the thought of the hidden drugs. No, not anymore.

It’s everything else. What I thought we were. What I thought this trip would be. What I thought she was…

She looked me in the eye, smiled, kissed me and gave me that bag.

And.. and…

She left me.

She left me with this.

And I..

God.

I told my mum I’d propose on this trip.

I even showed her the ring. She cried when I did. Said she had a feeling about this girl. She hugged me. Smiled at me. Told me how proud she was.

But now…

She would be whimpering into my father’s shoulder.

And stupidly even now knowing this, even as I hear the shuffle of boots on bare dirt, the low murmur of orders in a language I don’t understand, the soft rustle of leaves that don’t care who lives or dies…

I still think of her.

I picture her eyes, lit by sunrise on the plane. The curve of her smile. The warmth in her voice when she said she loved me.

She looked me in the eye.

Even now after everything, I want to believe some part of it was real.

But it wasn’t.

There’s a pause.

A breath.

My name is called.

And in the stillness that follows.

Before the crack of the rifles, before the world folds in.

there’s only one sound left in me:

Her laugh.

And the sound of my own heart breaking.

And that’s all I’ll take with me.

“Tembak!”