When Time Runs

I sat peacefully, appreciating the morning pause with my coffee. Rain beat rhythmically against the window; outside, vibrant leaves flew in the autumn wind, and that was the moment I saw you. You came back into my life with the force of a gale. Even in the paused moment, I noticed you hadn’t aged a day. Unlike me, you seemed exactly the same as you were before.

My shoulders and chest tightened. My jaw clenched. I lowered my gaze, and it was met by the rising steam of my coffee. Everything but the steam became still. The raindrops’ rhythm quietened into the distance. The autumn wind lost its howl. That was when I slipped back into our past, into our memories.

I remembered.

I remembered you.

The times came back to me in waves, and with them came fragments of love.

The negatives surfaced first. They flooded in quickly, uninvited. I focused on the quirks that had begun to bother me over time, how dependent you were on other people’s validation to know your worth, how you never saw this as an issue. How you could sit for hours, unaware that you were already enough. All the times my words fell silent on your ears, never quite reaching you. Never being enough. Feeling as worthless as you believed yourself to be.

You always placed yourself last. It looked like selflessness, but it was something else entirely, a way of running from the feeling of not being enough on your own. You clawed constantly at others to find your missing pieces, to quiet the emptiness you carried inside.

I remembered our conflicts. The clashes of mixed interests. The disagreements about how to fix or deal with things. I remembered your defense mechanisms, how easily you fell into the unhealthy and the unwise. How you didn’t try to break the cycles, slowly destroying yourself in the name of healing. I remembered all your secrets, the things you kept silent. The way you believed that if they weren’t spoken, they weren’t yours. That you weren’t accountable for what you did if no one knew.

Closely following these memories came the good.

The times we shared that I would have no objection to experiencing again today: the joy, the achievements, the lessons we learned together. The occasions we grew. The places we saw. The experiences we had. But as these moments became fewer and farther between, our time together had to close. And with it, the love faded.

The feelings that accompanied the memories were heavy. It felt as though I might collapse under the pressure, sinking into the rising steam that curled in front of me. That steam brought me back to the present.

That was where I found strength.

The strength to look up again.

The strength to rise above the steam.

From my chest, my shoulders widened. My back straightened. My head lifted, and with it, so did my gaze. At that moment, I looked back at you. Our eyes met instantly. You were smiling. That initial thought returned, that you hadn’t aged a day.

I lifted my hand and touched my face, feeling the grooves and the bumps, the imperfections shaped by time. Marks I had grown to adore. I touched my hair, then looked at yours. Mine had dried and weathered from all the places I had walked since knowing you.

I broke our gaze and looked around. There was no one near me. In the distance, the rain slowly resumed its pitter-patter against the window. The dull howl of the wind followed soon after. Once again, I realised I was alone.

My gaze returned to you. You were surrounded by people. You were not alone like me. And yet, I knew, without a doubt, that you were lonely there.

All the words I once had at my disposal remained unspoken. Their absence said enough. Finding yourself is a surer path to contentment. Loving yourself first matters, even when it risks being seen as selfish or cold, with it invites others to stare and decide you are not amiable.

The emptiness you left behind had been vast at first. It echoed. It frightened me. But standing on the far side of it now, I could see what it had made room for.

So I sat there, staring back at you, realising it had been the right decision to leave you behind. Not to forget you entirely, but to keep you where you belonged, in the past. Not to regret what we had, but to remember it and heed it as a warning.

I sat peacefully, appreciating the morning pause with my coffee. Rain beat rhythmically against the window; outside, vibrant leaves flew in the autumn wind, and that was where the memory of you lingered.

When I finished my coffee, I stood and paid at the counter. I collected my coat and scarf from the rack and put them on. I glanced into the mirror and adjusted my scarf. When I looked back at myself, a smile broke across my face.

I went to take my leave, but the server clearing the table called out to me.

‘Isn’t this yours? She called, walking towards me.

‘Why yes, it is. Thank you.’ I replied.

She studied it briefly, then looked back at me. ‘The man in the middle looks a lot like you. Is he your younger brother?’ she asked

‘No,’ I said, ‘That was me.’

She smiled politely, handed it back, and returned to her work as nothing significant had passed between us.

The bell above the door chimed as I stepped outside. Rain gently beat down onto my face, the vibrant leaves flew past me in the autumn wind, people moved past without pause, and with them I was grounded back into the present, where I once again walked on alone but loved. The photograph sat folded in my pocket, untouched but remembered.

Behind me, the cafe window fogged over once more, blurring the inside from the out.