When the Silence Broke

The beeping was slower than I expected.

Almost casual. Like death had wandered in, late for an appointment, unconcerned.

I hadn’t seen him in seventeen years.

Seventeen.

That’s not just a number. It’s a scar that forgot to close.

I didn’t plan to come.

No suitcase. No flowers. No apology.

Just a half-dissolved mint in my pocket and an ache behind my left eye that pulsed whenever someone said his name.

Which they did. A lot.

Like they didn’t know he stopped being mine.

I stood in the doorway too long.

Long enough for the nurse to glance up.

Long enough for the silence to get ideas.

“You can go in,” she said.

No. I couldn’t.

But I did.

He looked like someone halfway out the door.

Like his body had signed the exit paperwork, and his skin hadn’t gotten the memo.

The machines hummed like distant gossip.

Plastic tubes tangled around him like puppet strings.

I used to hate metaphors like that.

People reaching for poetry when you just needed facts.

But I was out of facts.

They’d expired years ago, right alongside my version of him.

There was a chair.

I sat.

Because that’s what you do when you’re too late.

“Hey,” I said.

It didn’t echo.

Didn’t ripple.

Just landed. And vanished.

Do you remember that summer?

The one with the fireworks and the broken toaster?

We made grilled cheese with a clothes iron.

You laughed so hard you dropped it on your foot.

The skin peeled for weeks.

We thought we’d live forever.

I wanted to say all that.

Instead I said,

“You look like shit, Danny.”

Pause.

Was that my voice?

Pause again.

He didn’t move.

But something inside me did.

A shift behind my ribs.

A splintering.

The kind that doesn’t bleed. Just swells.

“I got your letter,” I whispered.

Lie.

I never opened it.

I told myself it got lost in the mail.

That I wasn’t ready.

That he didn’t mean it.

That I didn’t need to read something written in a language I’d already forgotten—his.

I wonder what he said.

Or if he forgave me.

I wonder if he’s waiting for me to say it first.

But the beeping keeps going.

Slower now.

Almost steady.

Almost done.

Self-Edit & Reflection

This excerpt started like a bruise.

Not a story. Not a scene. Just a dull ache I needed to name.

I didn’t plot it. I bled it.

The biggest risk I took here wasn’t the grammar. It was the silence.

1. Fragmentation as Feeling

The structure is fractured—short lines, staccato thoughts, unfinished breaths. That wasn’t a style choice. It was mimicry. This is how the mind speaks when it’s drowning in memory and regret. It doesn’t write essays. It repeats. It stutters. It breaks.

Examples like:

“No. I couldn’t.

But I did.”

Or:

“Pause.

Was that my voice?

Pause again.”

These weren’t for rhythm. They were for reality.

2. Subtext Over Exposition

There’s no explanation for the estrangement. No backstory dump. No clarity about what happened between them.

Because in real life, we don’t get flashbacks with timestamps. We get fragments. Memories that surface in smells and sounds. That toaster anecdote? It’s not about toast. It’s about a love that got buried and never dug up.

3. Metaphors With Teeth

I used metaphor not for poetry’s sake, but to expose emotion without naming it. Lines like:

“His body had signed the exit paperwork, and his skin hadn’t gotten the memo.”

“Plastic tubes tangled around him like puppet strings.”

These aren’t fancy flourishes. They’re stand-ins for words the narrator can’t say aloud. That’s what humans do when grief makes language feel too sharp.

4. An Unreliable, Honest Narrator

“I got your letter,” I whispered.

Lie.

That one moment is everything.

She lies. Then immediately confesses—to us, not to him. That gap? That’s the most human thing I could put on the page. We lie when we think it’ll hurt less. Then we suffer from the truth we didn’t speak.

5. Ending Without Resolution

There’s no neat bow here. No apology. No forgiveness. Just slower beeping and quiet wondering. That’s the risk. Ending in ambiguity.

But sometimes ambiguity is the truth.

What I Learned From Editing This

In editing, I wanted to fix everything.

Smooth the pacing. Add clarity. Explain their backstory.

But every time I tried, it felt less real.

Eventually, I realized: this isn’t a story about what happened.

It’s about what didn’t.

So I left the silences. The stumbles. The lie.

Because this is what regret sounds like when it finally speaks.

It doesn’t apologize.

It just shows up too late and whispers:

“I got your letter.”

And hopes that’s enough.