What We Didn’t Do

What We Didn't Do

I stood at the edge of the pavement, like at the edge of a life I once lived—my body in the present, my heart stubbornly refusing to accept that the past was over. The street was ordinary. Too ordinary for what was happening inside me. People walked without caution, carrying shopping bags, carrying on conversations, and making dinner plans. Everything looked normal, and that was precisely the problem. Normality leaves no room for fractures.

One innocent look, and I saw you. Not your face. Not yet. Your shoulders. The way you stood, as if your body had learned to brace for impact. As if you still measured space before occupying it. As if you never stepped into anything without hesitation—not even your own life. My heart reacted before I thought.

It always had. It made that brief, foolish jolt—like a dog recognizing its owner in a crowd, even after years of being trained not to hope.

But my body is smarter than my illusions. My palms grew damp. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. That familiar drop settled in my stomach, as if I had stepped onto a stair that wasn't there. That's this kind of love, I thought. Not the type that reaches for a hand, or a voice, or a return. But the quiet kind. The kind that stands inside you and asks for no explanations. The type you keep under control, not because it's weak—but because you know exactly what it would do if you let it loose.

I would not want to meet you. Not because I don't love you. That's the most uncomfortable truth: I still do—the way one loves a wound that has stopped bleeding. You don't touch it. You don't examine it. You make sure not to reopen it.

Encounters have the power to wake everything I worked so hard to put to sleep. And I worked at it for years. Learning how to pass places where we once stood without slowing my pace. Not to search for your name in unfamiliar voices. Learning not to ask myself what might have been if just one thing had gone differently. I learned discipline. Not the noble kind. The cold kind. The kind that doesn't heal—but keeps things under control.

The shop window in front of me blended our reflections. My image overlapped yours, creating a false version of reality in which we still stood side by side. In that version, I felt no fear. In that version, you turned toward me and came closer. In reality, you were looking at your phone. Of course you were. It was always easier for you to look at something you could turn off.

Sarcasm had always been my shield. When afraid, I joked. When hurting, I minimized it. When loved too much, I said it was nothing. Except with you, it was always everything.

The first time I saw you wasn't cinematic. There was no music. No magic. It was stupid and ordinary: a cup of coffee going cold and a question that wasn't really a question, just an excuse. Later, you told me you were drawn to my silence. I told you I was drawn to your calm. The truth was simpler and uglier: we were drawn to each other's wounds and mistook them for depth.

You had one habit I never forgot. Whenever you were nervous, you would take your watch off and place it face down, as if time stopped existing once you refused to look at it. I pretended not to notice, but every time the watch disappeared from your wrist, I knew something was coming that I wouldn't know how to carry.

At first, it was easy. At first, it always feels like you've found peace. But real life arrives. The kind that doesn't ask whether you're ready. For us, it came in the shape of the future. You wanted it. I avoided it. Not because I didn't want you, but because I didn't trust what came after.

We were standing in the kitchen when you said, "We need to talk."

Kitchens are dangerous places. People think they're safe because ordinary objects surround them, but truth always finds its way between pots and sinks. You talked about plans. About moving in. About "making it official." About everything that sounds stable to people who don't know how stability collapses. I felt the tightening in my chest, like a belt pulled slowly, patiently.

I didn't have the strength to explain my ruins. I didn't have words for a fear without a name. And then I did what I always do when I'm cornered. I said the wrong thing.

"You want this because you're afraid of losing me," I said. "Not because you love me."

I saw you take your watch off. You said quietly, "That's not what I meant."

And in that one sentence, there was everything. I heard, "You don't understand me."

You heard: "I don't trust you."

The truth was simpler: we were both afraid.

After that, there was no shouting. Just silence—the kind that leaves no room for return. You went into the other room. I stayed in the kitchen, staring at the sink as if it might explain how people are fixed. It didn't.

Now, on this street, everything returned to my body before it reached my mind—as if the past had found me before I found it. You lifted your gaze from your phone. I didn't know if you saw me. I didn't know if I would survive it if you had.

I had a choice. To step forward. Or to turn away. People think courage means approaching someone. But sometimes courage means not opening doors that lead backward, you know. One look would have been enough to shatter the balance. And I realized it had never been balanced at all—just carefully maintained silence.

The traffic light was red. You stepped forward, then stopped. I took a breath and chose what I had been practicing for years. I turned away. No drama. No checking. No final glance. I walked in the opposite direction. Step by step, like burying something that had been dead for a long time but never given a grave.

I don't know if you saw me. I don't want to know. Let your version of me stay where it was. And let my version of you remain inside me—quiet, without demands. Because we would have become what we always were: Two people who met at the wrong time.

And sometimes, painful as it is, that is the purest form of love.

The kind that asks for no encounter.