Between Bristols

What if we never said goodbye?

That question kept threading itself between my thoughts as I turned the key in Noah’s door—a question I both dreaded and craved the answer to. The lock gave easily, as if remembering me. The apartment exhaled damp and dust, the chill of December creeping in through the windows, infused with a lingering essence of his cologne. A padding of steps broke the silence—an approaching heartbeat.

Baxter burst from the hallway, tail windmilling with joyful abandon, nails clicking on the floor. He smelled of wet fur and wood smoke. When he pressed his head into my knees, his familiar weight grounded me. I bent down and buried my fingers in the thick fringe behind his ears, finding solace in his presence.

“Hey, love,” I whispered.

He pressed his warm body against my legs, exhaling a deep doggy sigh of homecoming. Beneath the weight of grief settling around us, I found a small comfort: in this empty flat, at least Baxter still recognized me.

The flat was smaller than memory. Or perhaps my memories had stretched it over all our video calls—each pixelated smile and shared laugh filling it with light and jokes, as if the distance couldn’t dim their connection. Now it felt condensed; Noah gone, gravity back where it belonged.

I found the landlord’s note on the counter; its edges crinkled from being folded and unfolded: Thanks for coming back. Dog’s been fine, just lonely. Post’s on the table.

Baxter shadowed every move I made, his soft paws following me, a steady rhythm that anchored me to the present. I boiled the kettle out of reflex. Steam rose; it smelled faintly of his favorite tea, though the tin remained sealed. I hadn’t touched it.

When I closed my eyes, I was in his kitchen four years earlier, the night he’d found Baxter—a rain‑drenched puppy nosing through bins near the harbor. He’d called me, breathless, soaking, the sound of a whimper in the background. Can I keep him?

That was the night I’d said yes, without thinking, to a life that crossed an ocean—a decision that now felt like a blessing and a curse.

Mrs. Penley arrived that afternoon, scarves layered like insulation. She carried a small plate of shortbread dusted with sugar.

“So you made it back,” she said, voice soft from too many sympathies this year. “Bless you; poor Baxter’s been pining since—well—since October.” The weight of those words settled around us, echoing my own feelings of absence.

“Thank you for checking on him,” I said simply.

She lingered, eyes on the dog circling his bed. “Why didn’t you come by and say hi when you were here last spring, dear?”

“I wasn’t here in the spring.” My voice caught slightly as confusion twisted in my stomach.

“I could’ve sworn I saw you down by the harbour. Same coat and all,” she tilted her head.

“That’s not possible,” I said automatically.

“Oh, surely not,” she murmured, embarrassed. “My old eyes play tricks these days.” Behind her, Baxter wagged his tail, sensing the warmth of her presence. She set the biscuits down and fidgeted with her scarves nervously before heading out, leaving a scent of rose.

Outside, sleet struck the glass in tiny percussive bursts. I pressed my palm against the cold windowpane and felt each impact vibrate through my skin, the rhythm matching my quickening pulse as the empty flat seemed to contract around me.

Evening condensed early. Baxter needed walking, and I needed motion. We stepped into the drizzle and went left toward the canal. The sky made no distinction between clouds and river. A cluster of market lights reflected twice on the water, doubling themselves like a blink between realities.

When we turned a corner, streets refused to match the map on my phone. Where there should have been a florist, instead there was a bakery, its awning humming with yellow warmth. The rich fragrance of cinnamon — or cloves — or something between, wafted through the air.

I checked the time. The date on my screen flickered once, settling on Saturday, December 16. But I had arrived on a Friday. Nothing felt right.

Baxter tugged forward, unconcerned by the shifting realities around us.

Sorting through Noah’s desk drawers the next morning, I stumbled upon a photograph I’d never seen: he and I in Bath, laughing into a spring sun. I was wearing the green coat I bought after the funeral, tags barely off.

On the back, written in his quick upright script: Bath, April 2023.

Last spring—a moment I never lived.

The pen stroke had bitten deep into the glossy surface, as if he’d pressed hard to make sure I’d feel it later. My thumb left a sweaty blur on the date, but the numbers refused to smear.

In the cafe below, Callum looked up from the espresso machine and grinned. “Good to see you back so soon. Thought you both were gone for good after—well, autumn came and went.”

“Both?” I echoed, the word tasting strange on my tongue.

He frowned, embarrassed. “Sorry, just habit. You and he always came in together.”

I paid, said thanks, walked out before my reflection in the window could decide which season it belonged to.

The days began to loop, each morning blurring into the next. Sometimes I’d wake to rain clattering against the window, sometimes to sunlight too bright for winter. Baxter’s fur alternated between damp and dry, his watchful eyes scanning the hallway as though someone still walked it—waiting for a familiar presence.

One dawn, the aroma of buttered toast pulled me from sleep like a gentle hand. A man’s voice hummed a line of melody from the bedroom doorway. “Morning. The dog’s starving.”

I turned; the world tilted. Noah stood there, longer hair, full beard, eyes shadowed yet absolutely alive. Baxter’s tail thumped once in recognition.

I didn’t speak. My body considered screaming but couldn’t, caught in the surreal moment between dream and waking.

He smiled—changed yet constant. “You’re taking him back this time, aren’t you?”

The kitchen light buzzed, and when I blinked, he—everything—had shifted again into ordinary vacancy, a haunting emptiness where warmth had once thrived. The room held nothing but a buttery ghost-scent and one pale crumb caught in a sunbeam.

After that, certainty dissolved like sugar in water, leaving only a sweet confusion in its wake. Some days, the ink on postmarks rearranged itself. I’d walk Baxter, only to find the same corner led to two different streets, depending on which way I turned my head.

Twice I heard footsteps matching mine along the canal path, the soft sound of soles against the wet cobblestones. When I glanced sideways, there was Noah, carrying a bag of groceries as if it were the most natural thing.

He looked five years younger—or just refurbished, like an updated photograph. We kept pace in silence.

“They’re rebuilding the bridge.” His tone was light, as if discussing the weather.

I glanced toward the river, bewildered. The bridge was whole.

“It doesn’t need rebuilding,” I said, a hint of desperation in my voice.

“It did,” he replied, “in the other direction.”

Then, almost merrily, he tossed an apple to Baxter, who leapt in vain, catching nothing. By then, Noah was gone, and the apple rolled across the path, stopping at my foot.

The mirror within the hall showed peculiar behavior that evening. Reflections lagged. When I lifted my arm, the other me gestured first, a pulse out of sync, as if existence itself had become knotted.

Once, Noah appeared behind me in the glass, half a second late, as if caught between multiple worlds.

Each morning, new fragments opened on his laptop—sentences that mirrored thoughts I hadn’t typed:

The city doesn’t know which morning to keep. She keeps walking it back toward me.

I tried deleting them; they remade themselves as white gaps in the dark screen.

By day six, sleep transformed into a landscape of its own, swirling with the dreams of two Bristols laid over each other: one damp and grey, one washed in rose‑gold haze where people moved a beat slower.

When I woke, the bed felt recently vacated on the other side, emptiness. Baxter whined quietly, nose pressed to the cool sheet, seeking warmth in the absence.

I told myself aloud, “He’s gone,” but the air didn’t shift, the silence remaining unyielding in its weight, as if it clung to his memory.

The next evening, the fog rolled in thick as wool, wrapping the city in a muffled embrace. We followed the same path, Baxter’s leash biting cold into my palm. The city was unrecognizable—shop signs blurred into vague shapes, light bending in strange refractions. Somewhere mid‑bridge, another pair of footsteps merged with ours.

“Noah?,” I said, and the name didn’t echo; it steadied the fog.

He appeared beside me, coat collar raised against the chill, his face both familiar and strange at once. Something about him belonged to this winter, as if he'd grown from the frost itself. I traced his silhouette with my eyes, noting how it almost matched my memory—except for the thin crescent scar at his temple, a detail my Noah never carried. My fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, to trace that minor aberration that marked him as not-quite-mine.

We walked together in silence, a fragile tension hanging between us, until my fingers stopped trembling. Then he spoke. “Funny, the city never ends where you think.”

His voice was solid warmth. For a few minutes, denial built a cathedral around me, its towering walls a sanctuary from the truth.

When I turned to look straight at him, Baxter’s leash reached into emptiness. The shopfront glass caught us—just me and the dog, while something like heat shimmer or disturbed water rippled at the edge of the reflection, a presence retreating from view even as I strained to hold it.

The fog loosened, releasing its grip. Lamps re‑emerged, cars existed again, and we were back on ordinary pavement.

After that night, the world repeated in subtle variations. I passed the same bakery each morning, but its name changed: Hearth, Heart, Heath. The air shifted temperature mid‑stride, a sudden chill, as I caught sight of a man with Noah’s posture crossing every street, always a few paces beyond reach.

I began charting them—the echoes—on scraps of paper:

doorbell rings at 9:07 every time I think of calling my sister, river smells of cedar tonight, reflection lags longer

Every scribbled observation was a lifeline, something to clutch between reality's sudden collapses.

One afternoon, I lost an entire half‑day. I blinked at the clock—5 PM—and then blinked again: darkness, 9:17. Baxter’s leash lay curled by the door, still wet from a walk I didn’t remember.

A fine layer of flour dust covered the counter; the oven was warm.

He had baked something; I thought absurdly, mind racing. Then the thought corrected itself: I had tried to stay busy, filling the void left behind. Maybe both things were true.

I broke the crusted loaf open; inside was raw dough, half‑risen, unfinished.

On what I decided was my final night in the flat, fog pressed against the windows like held breath. I walked Baxter one last time. The city shimmered between versions; lights flickered, lamps doubled, pavements skewed.

Halfway down Queen’s Gate, the street opened into that rose‑gold world again—buildings stretched taller, air warmer. Noah waited by the crossing, Baxter’s leash looped casually in his hand.

“I wondered if you’d take the long way again,” he said, a gentle smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

The sound of his voice—so ordinary—broke something gentle in me. I stepped up beside him.

We walked. The river sang without movement, a hollow rush of still water. For a moment, I truly believed he was alive—that I was the one who hadn’t made it over the ocean.

Then reflections betrayed the truth: in every glass shopfront, there was only me walking the dog.

The realization didn’t hurt, not exactly. It simply untied the knot of fear that had been constricting my heart.

Baxter nudged my leg, urgent and insistent, a grounding force in the shifting landscape of my grief, impatient for solid ground.

“I get it,” I whispered. “I keep coming here because I didn’t know which of us was the echo.”

The city breathed out. The fog thinned, leaving nothing magical—only the wet smell of fish, the hiss of tires on stone, Baxter shaking rain from his coat.

At dawn, color returned, washing away the grey. Mrs. Penley’s voice came through the door, asking if I needed boxes. Callum knocked later with coffee, hesitant but kind. Everything ordinary reasserted itself.

I packed methodically: papers, camera, leash, each item a reminder. On the desk I left one photograph—the Bath picture from the impossible year. In it Noah smiled with that slightly changed face; I looked older. The paper edges were still damp, as if the moment was still fresh.

I closed the door to the flat. The latch caught with a definitive click.

Outside, drizzle silvered the street. A taxi idled at the curb. I lifted Baxter into the back seat; he turned a slow circle and settled his head on my knee.

As we pulled away, I looked up at the window of the flat. For an instant, a figure stood behind the glass, hands in pockets, watching the street.

Shorter hair, faint beard, peaceful expression.

I didn’t wave. Whatever part of him existed there already knew.

Across the ocean, Philadelphia held its breath—the nooks of my apartment would no longer wait for his footsteps, his half-read novels could remain splayed open on the nightstand without accusation, and the empty hook would simply be a place to hang Baxter's leash when we returned.

Whether I’d crossed timelines or merely lived inside my own grief didn’t matter. The street held, the world held, Baxter’s heartbeat was steady under my palm—a reminder that love endures.

That was proof enough of what survived.