Love's silent struggle
If I told myself Emma was just a harmless crush, I'd be lying—just as I lied to myself yesterday and the day before that. The truth is, I tumbled headlong into something I can barely name. Every morning, I cross the silent corridor to the café where she sits, my heart pounding like I'm about to leap off a cliff. I plan to confess, rehearse the words on the drive over, and yet, when I finally see her across the table, the words vanish like mist.
It's maddening—this sweet torment. Love has shoved me to a crossroads I didn't even know existed, and now I'm wrestling with a phantom of my own making. When she's not here, I feel swallowed by emptiness, as if the world blurs at its edges and drifts away. With her, I feel seen—alive—like the secret corners of my soul might finally break into light.
I dream of making promises so fierce she can keep them in her bones: to shield her from storms, to trace constellations of her laughter, to guard every hidden ache in her chest. I long to trade confidences in whispered shadows, to tuck my fears and dreams into her hands as though they were fragile doves.
But I'm fractured—an island of anger and longing, stranded by my own silence. If only she could read the tremor in my voice, the tremble in my gaze—if only my soul could spill its truth without me uttering a syllable. Perhaps then she'd know: I don't merely want her in my life. I need her there, a compass guiding me back from the unknown places inside myself.
I settled into the plush leather chair, the rich scent of aged hide mingling with the faint varnish of my violin standing at attention in its corner. Three hours had slipped by and the blank page before me remained pristine—an unforgiving mirror of my own silence. The afternoon sun flooded the desk, its golden fingers dancing across the empty sheet as though imploring me to fill it with words. Yet its warmth felt distant, beyond my reach—as if I were frozen in a space between memory and longing.
I drew a slow breath, trying to summon focus. But every time my eyes drifted from the page to the violin's ebony curves, a phantom ache pricked my heart. This office—once my brother's sanctuary—was a shrine to everything I'd lost. I could almost hear Alex's laughter echo beneath the high ceilings, imagine the triumphant flourish of his bow delivering one of his breathtaking phrases. He was eighteen when Father ceremoniously christened this room in his name: "Alex Ardel," it proclaimed in brass letters. And yet, here it is now—my name where his once was—polished clean of his memory, as if he'd never lived.
Father pretends he's gone, too, leaving me alone with the weight of our shared blood. I feel Alex in every heartbeat, in every hollow that life left behind when he left. And so I play—awkwardly, reluctantly—forcing bow across strings, coaxing out trembling notes I can barely bear to hear. I tell myself it's for him: that maybe, somewhere, he's listening, and those melodies will guide him back.
But each note cuts like a blade, reminding me of how much of myself walked away with him. The violin's voice wavers, a confession of guilt and devotion all at once: I play because I must, because silence has become its own unbearable grief. And in the echo that hangs between each strain, I search—futilely—for the brother whose absence has become my only constant.
Then, like a bell awakening something deep within me, I remembered my own dream—the one that made my pulse race and my fingers tremble with need. I'd been wandering through memories of Alex, convinced I'd lost myself chasing a shadow that would never return. But in that moment, a single snowflake drifted through the open window, its crystalline form tumbling into my world as if by design.
My pen lifted, hesitating above the void of the page, and then fell: "When snow falls..." Three simple words, yet they felt like the first notes of a long-forgotten melody. Suddenly, language flowed through me in a torrent. The blank paper dissolved beneath a river of phrases, each more vivid than the last—frosted branches, breath like smoke, a heart thawing in the hush of a winter dawn.
In a frenzy of inspiration, I grabbed sheet after sheet. The silence of the room surrendered to the frantic rhythm of my scribbling. Page after page bloomed beneath my pen, each line a testament to the fire I thought had died within me. I stared in awe at my own hand, amazed by the fervor it contained—proof that even in the wake of loss, a new purpose can take root.
I laughed—half in wonder at the storm of words I'd unleashed, half at the revelation of just how deep Emma's gravity pulled me. My pulse still buzzed with adrenaline when a soft knock drew me back to the present.
"Come in," I called, and Michael appeared in the doorway, shoulders slumped, dark circles beneath his eyes betraying a restless night. He closed the door behind him with a muted click and made his way to the low leather sofa by the fireplace. Leaning back, he stretched until a crisp pop echoed in the hush of the room.
I watched him for a moment—his exhaustion mirroring my own in ways neither of us would admit. Flames danced in the hearth, casting warm shadows that flickered across his weary features. "Rough night?" I asked, attempting casual, but my voice caught on the ember-bright excitement still thrumming beneath my ribs.
Michael exhaled, shoulders sagging further. "You could say that." His gaze drifted to the pile of freshly scrawled pages on my desk. "I've never seen you like this before. You look...alive."
I slid one sheet toward him, the ink still glinting in the firelight. "It's been a while since I remembered what that feels like." And for the first time in months, I believed it was true. Between the scratch of pen on paper and the lingering echo of Emma's name in my heart, I was finding my way back.