It was a Tuesday. Just another gray day. The kind that slips through your fingers without making a sound. I had wandered into a coffee shop on Montaigne Street, one I hadn't visited before. The rain was light, but persistent, like a memory that won't quite leave you alone. I sat by the window—always the window. There's something comforting about watching strangers hurry through their lives while yours stands still.
Then it happened.
A song. Three notes in.
And there it was—your laughter.
Not exactly your laughter. But close enough. Close enough to make me look up. Close enough to stop my breath, to freeze me mid-sip.
It wasn't real, of course. Just a fragment of memory buried in melody. But in that moment, you were everywhere. Your voice echoed in the hum of the café, your warmth returned in the soft rise of the chorus, and your joy—your unfiltered, free laughter—sounded through the quiet pain I thought I had tucked away.
And suddenly, I was twenty-five again, sitting across from you, watching you laugh at something only you found funny. Your laugh used to start in your eyes, before it even reached your mouth. It rolled, unbothered by anything else around it, unapologetically alive.
That laugh undid me.
I stood up, left my coffee untouched. My hands were trembling. I didn't say goodbye to anyone—I just needed air.
The rain had intensified, each drop like punctuation on the sentences I wasn't saying. I walked without direction. Just letting the city absorb me, street after street, letting memories dictate my path. I passed by the theater where you once whispered poems in my ear while we waited in line. I turned a corner and found myself in front of the bakery where you used to sneak extra pastries into the bag "just because."
I kept walking.
Until I saw her.
She wasn't you. I knew that. But for a second—just long enough to shake something loose in me—she had your posture. Your way of turning your head to the left. Her laugh—again, that haunting laughter—echoed in a way that made the past come rushing back like a wave. And I almost called out. Almost said your name. Almost believed, just for a second, that time could be rewound.
But it wasn't you.
Just a stranger. Just a ghost wearing your gestures.
That night, Camille called.
"Hey. You okay?"
I lied.
"I saw you near the theatre the other day. You looked… far away."
I didn't respond.
"You're still thinking about her, aren't you?"
Of course I was. But I stayed silent.
Camille continued. "Alex… living your life doesn't mean betraying the past. It's not disloyalty to move forward."
That hit me harder than I expected. It's not disloyalty to move forward. And yet, for so long, that's exactly what it had felt like. As if healing meant forgetting. As if laughter without you in the room was a kind of treason.
But Camille was right. You're not here. And I am. And I have to figure out what to do with that.
Later that night, I opened my laptop. Scrolled through old folders. And there you were.
You on the dock, arms outstretched. You at the cabin, wrapped in a red blanket, your smile glowing through the cold. You in the train, asleep on my shoulder. And then, the photo I almost never look at: you laughing uncontrollably on our old balcony. Your eyes closed. Your mouth wide open in joy. It was taken seconds after I told you that stupid joke you loved.
I hovered over the "Delete" button.
My finger trembled.
I couldn't do it.
Not yet.
The days that followed were strange.
I started hearing your laugh in everything. In the chatter of children on the metro. In the static between radio songs. In the memories shared by friends who didn't know how to say your name anymore. It wasn't haunting—it wasn't painful. But it wasn't easy either. It was a kind of echo, living just beneath the surface of things.
A part of me hated it.
A part of me needed it.
Yesterday, I walked to the little park near the library. The one where you'd sit for hours reading under the willow tree. I don't know what I was hoping for. Maybe a sign. Maybe nothing.
The old woman was there again—the one who always feeds the pigeons and barely says a word.
I sat next to her.
She glanced at me. "You don't come as often anymore."
I smiled faintly. "Life's been… somewhere else."
She nodded like she understood everything. "Life takes. But it gives, too. Don't turn your back on it for too long, dear. It might forget you're still here."
I don't know why that shook me the way it did. But it stayed with me.
"It might forget you're still here."
Back home, I found the notebook.
The one you insisted we keep. "One line a day," you said. "Something honest. We'll read it in ten years." I had forgotten about it.
I opened it.
Your handwriting met mine across the pages—like two rivers running alongside each other. Some entries were mundane. "Ran out of tea." "You snored again." Others… cut deeper. "I love you more today." "I'm afraid we're becoming quiet." "I hope your silence doesn't mean goodbye."
And then, one line from you—dated two weeks before everything fell apart:
"If I'm ever gone, I hope my laugh still lives inside you."
I broke down. The kind of cry that comes from somewhere ancient. A release I hadn't allowed myself in years. As if that sentence had been waiting all this time to finally reach me.
Today, I returned to the café on Montaigne Street.
The same song played.
This time, I didn't flinch. I let the music wash over me. Let your laughter dance between the notes. I even smiled.
Not because the pain was gone.
But because the pain had softened. Because the wound had started to scab. Because your laugh no longer felt like a dagger—but like a memory I could live with.
And as I stepped outside, something unexpected happened.
A woman passed me.
She had a book by Marguerite Duras in her hand. She looked up. Our eyes met. And for the first time in a long time, I felt a flicker—small, cautious, but unmistakable.
She smiled.
Not the kind of smile that demands something. Just a human smile. Gentle. Present.
I smiled back.
And that was it.
I kept walking. But something had changed. I wasn't sure what. Only that maybe—just maybe—the door to whatever comes next had creaked open a little.
Not to erase you.
Never to erase you.
But to remember that I'm still here. That life hasn't forgotten me.
End of Chapter
Cliffhanger
The narrator meets the eyes of a woman holding a Duras novel. A soft smile is exchanged, marking a shift. It's not a promise, but a possibility. The first moment of true openness to life after the loss. Will Alex allow something new to begin? Or is it just a flicker lost in the wind?
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