𝗯 𝘆 : 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 [[𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗼]]
𝗳 𝗶 𝗹 𝗲  𝘁 𝘆 𝗽 𝗲 : 𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘀𝘁, 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 (𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗲) 𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀
𝘄 𝗮 𝗿 𝗻 𝗶 𝗻 𝗴 : 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵, 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲)

You pretend you don't see the coffee shop that you go to on your dates when you walk past it. You don't go there to get your daily cup anymore, and you don't even go as close as to be able to smell the aroma of freshly-ground coffee beans wafting through the windows of the shop that remind you of him. Beautiful, but never there forever.

You act like his clothes in the back of your closet aren't there anymore. You can't bear to throw them away, or return them back to his house, but there is a dull ache in your heart whenever you see that old shirt filled with hints of your kisses and the leftover warmth of your hugs. New clothes pile up in the closet every month, slowly covering the fresh, never-worn jacket of his that was a gift to you ever since he passed.

The pictures of the both of you that used to be displayed proudly in frames in every wall of the house are turned around so all you see are the plain, boring cardboard backs of those frames. If anything, it was better than feeling hot tears sting up in your eyes every time you see his face, that familiar smirk or smile burning into the back of your mind as a reminder of what you can never see again. You want to take them down, you really do, but those cold walls feel so much emptier without the pictures of him facing them.

The playlist he made just for you sits at the bottom of your song library untouched. You've never heard it for so, so, long, but every title of every song and every lyric of every track is etched permanently into your brain like a needle on skin, carving those pretty but painful words over and over again in a sick red ink. You can't delete it because every time you look at the name of the playlist, his and yours, it makes you think about him and his sweet, comforting voice and you feel like crying.

You never stop by his house to steal a snack or two on weekends anymore and the street he lived in feels so unfamiliar to you now. When you do catch a glance of that weathered fence and street sign, though, you look away immediately and try to distract yourself. Snow piles at the sides of the pavement during winter, not all over the ground as crushed and broken snowballs, or as half-melted snowmen that looked like you. Rain puddles are stagnant and still, not being stepped on and splashed in on days when the weather is gloomy, like they used to.

The necklace he gave you on your birthday a few years ago lies safely in its box and in your drawer beneath a pile of love letters addressed to you. It tarnishes and slowly corrodes with time, its clasp slowly becoming stiffer as it rusts. You haven't took it out to wear for a long time, but when you did, the chain that hung loose on your neck felt like it was strangling you. The love letters, with pretty words written on mildewy brown paper, words that he will never be able to say or write to you again.

I love you.
You looked great today.
I enjoyed our date a lot.
Wanna go out tomorrow? Please say yes :)
How are you?
Sleep well.
Remember to eat your dinner.
Hello.

I miss you.

I miss you.

"I miss you.."
Tears stream down your face as you silently cry, clutching the paper tightly until it crumpled.

You knew you shouldn't have let curiosity consume you.

You knew you shouldn't have read that letter.

You knew you shouldn't have kept all the traces of him near to you.

But...you didn't regret hearing his distant but achingly familiar voice through that letter.

You lie on the floor, still holding on to his letter for dear life, trying to feel his lingering memory through the blue ink on the old paper.