Every Unread Message

I keep telling myself he is just busy. That is what love is supposed to be: understanding, waiting, trusting. But every unread message feels like a knife turning in my chest. I see him online. I see him active. And still nothing. Hours. Sometimes days. Then a photo appears, him laughing, alive in a world that does not include me. His smile cuts straight through me. It tells me I am not necessary.

I do not want to be jealous. I do not want to be this person. But silence eats me alive. It does not sit still. It claws, it presses, it whispers. I was raised for this, was I not? My parents made sure of it. They trained me to believe love is pain, to believe I had to earn every scrap. Always too much, or never enough. Always wrong.

So I wait. I kneel. I pretend it does not hurt. But it does. God, it does. And the silence feeds on it.

At night the walls listen. The shadows crawl. The silence feels alive. Some nights I think he is the issue, keeping me starving. But other nights, most nights, I know it is me. It always has been me.

I catch myself staring at my reflection too long. It does not blink when I do. It smiles when I do not. Sometimes my own voice echoes in the room, whispering things I do not want to say out loud. He does not want you. He never did. You will always be left behind. You are a joke. You will ruin everything he touches. You are the weight around his throat. Just end it already. The silence twists my thoughts until I do not know which ones belong to me.

When the phone vibrates I jump like I have been shocked. My hands shake before I even check it because I already know it will not be him. And when it is not, the emptiness becomes heavier, as if something sits on my chest waiting for me to stop breathing.

The ticket is booked. A decision I made when he still answered, when he still said, Yes, come, I miss you. Back then it felt like salvation. Proof that all this waiting would end. But weeks pass. His words dry up. His replies shrink to nothing. And yet the date grows closer. I watch the calendar with dread crawling through my veins like ice water. What if he does not want me there anymore? What if he never did?

I tell myself it will be fine. That once I see him, it will be real again. That touch and presence will fix what silence has broken. But the closer the trip comes, the heavier it feels, like chains tightening link by link.

The day arrives. I travel with a stomach that feels carved out. The train window shows nothing but smudged landscapes. The city he lives in rises like a stranger. Streets unfamiliar, air thick, my body already out of place. I send a message: I am here. No reply. I walk anyway.

When I finally see him, the embrace is quick, distracted. His smile looks practiced. I try to convince myself it is just me being paranoid. He takes me to meet his friends, people whose names I only knew from stories. They greet me with laughter that is not warm. They watch me too closely, eyes darting to him, to me, to each other. Their jokes land sharp. They ask questions that are not questions. Oh, so this is her. You came all this way? Must have been quite the leap. Brave. Their words drip with something I cannot name. I laugh when they laugh but the sound sticks in my throat like glass.

I see it then, clearer than I wanted. I do not belong. I am an intruder in a story that never needed me. I am the shadow at the edge of their table, the strange addition, the burden. He does not defend me. He does not soften their words. He just sips his drink and avoids my eyes.

My hands shake under the table. My thoughts splinter. They hate me. He resents me. I am too much. I am ruining this. I am ruining him. I am the monster I always feared.

The night stretches long. Their laughter grows sharper, louder, and I shrink smaller. Every sound warps in my head until it becomes a chorus. You do not belong. You never did. He is suffocating under you. You are the problem. You are always the problem.

By the time I am alone, back in a room that does not feel safe, the silence returns. Only it is not empty anymore. It is thick, pulsing, alive. It hums under my skin, louder than my heartbeat, it twists my thoughts until I don’t know what’s mine anymore. I want to scream, but the sound never comes out. It’s like the silence swallows it before it leaves my throat. Maybe that’s what it wants - to keep me quiet, small, contained, until there’s nothing left but the gnawing inside me. I wonder sometimes what would happen if I stopped waiting. If I stopped trying to hold it together. Would the silence let me go, or would it finally eat me whole?

Would anyone even notice the difference?

I feel my thoughts splitting, twisting against themselves. One part of me whispers that it was all a dream. That this never happened. I have never visited. He's never left. Another part tells me I’m rotting from the inside, that I’ve always been a shadow moving through someone else’s life. That I will never belong. I will forever be just the substitute friend. Substitute girlfriend. The idiot that basks in love the most that it can because she knows it will never last. Everyone leave. Eventually.

The lines blur. I close my eyes and then open them. The walls breathe. Shadows snake along the corners of the ceiling, whispering and laughing. I can’t tell if the floor is under me or if I’m floating, suspended in the dark. I hear him calling my name, but it’s my own voice echoing back, layered over itself, distorted. Malicious. Fake. The room spins, tilts, folds in on itself, and the silence hums like a living thing.

And then I laugh. I laugh because I don’t know anymore. Up is down. Real is fake. Him is me. The problem is all of us. Or none. The glass in my hand trembles, spilling a little, cold on my skin, and I don’t care. I laugh again, louder, and the walls join in. Shadows crawl closer. The silence leans in.

The air tastes metallic. My chest feels heavy, like something waiting. I do not know if tomorrow will come. I do not know if I will let it.

I laugh again, softer this time.

And the night waits.