Chapter 25 The Things We Don’t Post

It had been forty-three days since she last saw him.

Not that she was counting. Not anymore. The calendar on her wall was free of circles and Xs now  no more marking anniversaries of endings. Just blank days, open hours, spaces she was learning to fill with herself.

Amara’s mornings had changed too. The apartment felt lighter, not because she’d redecorated, but because she’d stopped holding her breath inside it. She let sunlight spill through the curtains now. Let the kettle whistle without rushing to silence it. Let songs play all the way through even the ones that hurt.

Healing didn’t look the way people said it would. It wasn’t tidy or linear or triumphant. It was quiet. It was making tea without shaking. It was walking past the café where he once waited for her and not looking inside. It was finding laughter again not forced, just soft, unguarded, unexpected.

She still thought of him, though. Of course she did.

Not in the way that burned, but in the way you remember a dream blurry around the edges, real enough to make you pause before the day starts.

Sometimes, late at night, she’d scroll through her phone, thumb hovering over old photos. The temptation wasn’t to reach out, but to see if what they had still looked like love. It did. That was the cruel thing about pictures  they never changed, even when people did.

She opened her notes app once and typed something she’d never send:

You taught me how to leave, but you also taught me how to stay  with myself.

Then she deleted it.

Because that was the thing about Amara now she was learning that not every truth needed to be delivered.

Her poetry had started gaining attention online. It wasn’t intentional. One night, she’d posted a short piece something about grief wearing perfume and by morning, thousands of people had shared it. They said it felt “real.” She smiled at that, because it was. Every word she wrote now came from a place of quiet reclamation.

Still, there were things she didn’t post. Words that stayed tucked between her heart and the notebook beside her bed. Words like his name. Like “still.” Like “almost.”

One evening, she sat by the window with her laptop, drafting something new  a poem about second chances that didn’t arrive as lovers but as lessons. When she hit “save,” a soft ping followed.

A new comment on one of her older poems  The Echo Between Us.

The username made her pause.

It wasn’t his name, but it felt too close to be coincidence.

@aftertherain.

She stared at it for a moment, heart slowing, then racing again.

The comment read:

Sometimes, silence is the only apology we know how to give.

She read it twice. Then a third time. It could’ve been anyone  a stranger who resonated, a fan of her writing. But deep down, she knew better. The phrasing was too familiar. The way he used words like they were the only things left when touch had failed.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t delete it either. Just let it sit there, glowing faintly beneath her poem like a quiet confession neither of them would acknowledge.

Outside, the rain began soft, patient, the kind that never demands but always lingers. She pulled her knees to her chest and watched droplets trail down the glass.

For the first time in weeks, she didn’t flinch at the sound of thunder. Maybe because this time, she wasn’t waiting for him to come back. Maybe because she’d finally stopped running from the parts of herself that still loved him.

Her phone buzzed again  a notification from her poetry page. The same user had followed her.

Her pulse skipped, but she smiled instead of spiraling. Because the truth was, she didn’t need to know if it was him. The words were what mattered. The connection  fragile, quiet, unnamed was enough.

That night, she wrote again.

A part of me still turns when I hear your name,

but another part smiles,

because love like that taught me how to listen.

She left the notebook open on the nightstand. Not to be read, but to breathe.

And as she drifted toward sleep, she dreamed not of the past, but of something softer, kinder, something that didn’t need fixing to feel whole.

The next morning, she walked to the park. The air was crisp, her breath visible in small clouds. She carried her camera, capturing little things  a street vendor pouring coffee, a child chasing pigeons, the way sunlight fractured through puddles.

When she uploaded the photos later, one image caught her attention.

A bench. Empty, except for a folded newspaper and a takeaway cup.

The name of the café printed faintly on the sleeve.

The same café.

She didn’t remember taking it. Maybe she’d done it without thinking muscle memory, or something deeper.

She stared at the image for a long time before posting it with a caption:

“Some places don’t haunt us. They just hold our echoes until we’re ready to listen again.”

Minutes later, a like appeared.

The same username.

@aftertherain.

She closed her laptop, heart trembling but steady.

The universe wasn’t finished speaking. Not yet.

And that night, as the city hummed around her, Amara realized something beautiful:

Closure wasn’t the end of the story.

Sometimes, it was just the chapter where both hearts finally began to listen again  separately, softly, under the same moon.