He didn’t eat the soup I left outside his door. But the spoon was gone.
That small, merciless detail cracked something in me. Not because I thought soup could fix grief—but because it meant he’d opened the door, seen the effort, and still couldn’t bridge the distance between us.
A spoon without a bowl. A ghost of hunger without the strength to answer it. It meant he was still reaching for the world. Just not enough to stay in it.
I’d thought after that night on the deck—when his tears had glistened as I held him for the first time in years—that we’dturned a corner. The way he’d leaned into me, the way his breath had finally slowed against my chest… I’d let myself believe it meant something solid. Something steady.
Maybe I’d needed it to.
Now I stood there in the hallway, the bowl cold and heavy in my hands, the ceramic biting into my palms where broth had spilled. I lifted my fist to knock. And stopped. Because I didn’t trust myself—didn’t trust the pull in my chest that wanted to go to him, to gather him up, to keep him breathing if that was what it took.
My breath left me in a thin, unsteady exhale.
I had words—I always had words—but none that felt like they could reach across the ocean now stretched between us. I was terrified of choosing the wrong ones. Of saying something that would make him retreat further. Of being the reason he finally closed the door all the way.
So I didn’t knock. Instead, I turned on my heel and walked away carrying the bowl back to the kitchen like it weighed a hundred pounds. The broth was ice-cold now, congealed at the edges. I dumped it down the sink and rinsed the bowl under lukewarm water, watching the liquid swirl into nothing, watching it circle the drain like something unfinished. Something wasted.
Around me, the house barely breathed.
I moved through it quietly, cautiously. I watched for Elliot from doorways. From the bottom of the stairs. From the quiet edge of the living room, where I sat with a book I couldn’t read—its pages turning slowly beneath fingers too restless to focus.
Tried to time it right. To catch him mid-passage from one shadow to the next. But he slipped through the house like smoke. Hard to see. Impossible to hold.
When I did glimpse him—just the barest outline of his frame crossing a hallway or the soft scuff of his socked feet on the stairs—my chest tightened in a way I didn’t have language for. Like my body had already learned the shape of his absence and was bracing for it before my mind could catch up.
I stayed still when he passed. Held my breath without meaning to. Let him move through the space without calling his name, as if sound itself might spook him into disappearing again.
When he wasn’t locked away in his bedroom with the door half-cracked like an open wound, he was gone entirely—off to the cliffs, most likely. That jagged edge of the world he kept drifting toward, like it whispered secrets the rest of us didn’t deserve to hear. I could picture him there even now, hoodie pulled over his head, eyes hollow, wind howling against the rocks like the earth itself was trying to scream on his behalf.
There were days I nearly forgot how to speak to him. His silence had weight now. It distorted the air. He made himself so small, so quiet, it felt like any sound might shatter him. And I—God help me—I didn’t want to be the one who made the final break.
So I tried to be steady. Present. Gentle. I folded his laundry. Cooked his favorite foods. Left notes like breadcrumbs.
Thought of you when I saw this, don’t forget to drink water, I’m not going anywhere.
I thought maybe, if I was soft enough, consistent enough, it would guide him back.
But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. And David… David was worse.
A week after the funeral, he’d returned to work like a wind-up toy, moving through the motions of a life he wasn’t really in anymore. Sit. Stand. Type. Repeat. His eyes had gone dull. Hisvoice was colorless, brittle like an old film reel. I didn’t think he’d heard a word I’d said. He spoke only when necessary, and even then it was like he was reading from a script someone else had written.
I tried to reach him too. Left coffee on his desk. Gave him space, then tried again. I reminded him to eat. Asked about his projects. Asked about Elliot. Asked aboutanything.But he just nodded, said he was “fine,” then disappeared back into that office that might as well have been a crypt.
This house…This house wasn’t a home anymore it was purgatory. Filled with living things waiting to pass on. I hated it more with every stale breath.
David, locked in his study. Elliot, locked in his grief. And me—somewhere in between, stretched thin and unraveling, holding a thread that frayed more with each passing day. Every attempt I made to connect felt like a match struck underwater. There was no fire left in this place.
Still, I couldn’t stop watching Elliot. Couldn’t stop fearing he was disappearing—molecule by molecule—right in front of me. I’d watch him press his forehead against the glass at the end of the hallway, and he looked like something half-formed. Like a boy made of ash. Like one hard gust would scatter him to the wind.
And the worst part? I knew that feeling only too well. I’d seen that posture before—not in him, but in myself.
Years ago, in another life. That same silent ache hiding behind practiced smiles. The same stillness that wasn’t peace but numbness. The same moment when surviving felt like the only ambition left. I remembered learning how to hold my breath long enough that no one noticed I was drowning. I remembered the silence you wore like armor. The way pain turned inward when there was nowhere else for it to go. The way you convinced yourself that survival was enough.
Elliot had that look now. And I hated how familiar it was. But sometimes—God, sometimes—I still saw glimpses. Just flashes of the beautiful boy from my memories filled with child-like wonder. The innocence he’d since lost.
Three years old. Sticky fingers wrapped around my pinky, face smeared with jam and marker ink, eyes wide with love and fear. Whispering,“Don’t go.”Like he already knew I would. Like he already knew what kind of person I would become.
The kind who watched from doorways instead of stepping through them.
