The office was quieter than usual, as if the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for something inevitable to happen.
She sat at her desk, fingers trembling over her keyboard, but she couldn't focus. Her eyes kept darting to the clock, counting down the hours, knowing that soon, he would walk out the door for the last time.
It was his final day.
The thought had lingered in the back of her mind like a soft echo, but now—with each passing minute—it felt like a weight pressing down on her chest. A silence hung between them, thick and suffocating. A silence that had grown ever since the day he first quietly stepped into her world.
She had hoped—perhaps foolishly—that his last day would feel different. That fate might gift them one last moment, one final conversation to close the chapter. But no. It was just the same. Just distance. Just empty space where words could have lived, but never did.
Still, there had been a moment. Small. Silly. So easily missed by anyone else.
He had teased one of their mutual friends about getting free coffee—a lighthearted running joke, persistent and playful. "So, where's my coffee?" he would grin, half-serious, half-shy. It was never directed at her. But she had heard it. Again and again.
So, on that day—quietly, with no expectations—she bought him coffee. Just the way she imagined he might like it. Cold.
She didn't hand it to him herself. Instead, she asked their friend to pass it along. No note. No name. Just the gesture.
And that was enough. It was her secret offering. A quiet act of tenderness in a story that had remained unspoken. A way of saying, I heard you. I noticed. I cared.
He never knew it was from her. But it was still worth it—because she saw him smile. Just once more. Thanking their friend for the coffee, never realizing who had been behind it.
As the minutes slipped by, she realized she was going to miss him more than she had ever allowed herself to admit. Not just because he was leaving the office, but because he was leaving with a piece of her heart—a part she didn't know how to reclaim.
He had already said his goodbyes, in his quiet way. No grand gestures. No lingering glances. Just... gone.
She couldn't bring herself to say anything. Couldn't face him one last time. The ache inside her chest was too deep, too full of things that had never been spoken.
Toward the end of the day, she saw him—standing by the door, his bag slung over his shoulder. Ready to walk away and never return. His eyes skimmed the room but never landed on her.
And just like that, he was gone.
She didn't even know if he had noticed her looking at him. If he had seen the silent goodbye in her eyes. But it didn't matter anymore. He was leaving, and no amount of hope could change that.
She stayed at her desk long after he left. The soft hum of the office machines, the faint flicker of fluorescent lights—they were the only company she had left.
This was her goodbye. Quiet. Unspoken. Felt deeply, but never shared.
A farewell to someone who had never truly been hers, but who had held her heart in a way no one else ever had. A farewell to the moments in between—the what-ifs, the maybes, the lingering glances and soft smiles that had kept her going.
As the final hour of his final day passed, she accepted a truth she had tried to deny: he would never know. He would never realize how much space he had occupied in her life, in her heart.
And maybe... that was okay.
Because she would carry him with her—not as a wound, but as a soft, bittersweet memory. A memory of someone who had unknowingly changed everything.
The office was nearly empty now, just the soft buzz of lights and the occasional ding of the elevator. She stood up, her body heavy with the weight of a goodbye never spoken.
She walked out without looking back.
But somewhere, in the quiet of her heart, she knew she would always remember him.
And maybe—just maybe—he'd remember the coffee, too.