SHE LEFT A NOTE
A soft, slow-burning story about love, absence, and the spaces in between.
The kettle was still warm when he walked in, the faint curl of steam rising as though it had been waiting for him. The living room felt the same; her throw blanket folded neatly over the arm of the couch, the scent of her lavender hand cream lingering like a memory.
But she wasn’t there.
On the kitchen counter, tucked under the edge of the sugar jar, was a small folded paper. His name, in her looping handwriting, curved across the front. For a moment, he didn’t move. He just stared, his breath held between the space of knowing and not wanting to know.
When he opened it, the words weren’t sharp like he expected. They didn’t ache with endings or the finality of slammed doors. Instead, they were soft, almost trembling on the page.
"I’m not gone. I just need to find the parts of me I lost while trying to love you. I’ll come back if I can. Please water the plants.”
There was no date, no promise, no flourish at the end. Just her handwriting drifting off into the margin, as if she’d run out of space or courage. He read it again, slower this time, letting each word settle into the quiet. She hadn’t said goodbye. But she hadn’t said she’d stay either.
The kettle clicked as it cooled. He poured the water into a cup, the sound too loud in the stillness. Somewhere between the lines, he thought he heard her voice, not breaking, but pausing. It wasn’t the end. But it was a kind of waiting. And he hated how much waiting could feel like loss.
It had been twelve days since the note.
The plants by the window were greener than they’d ever been. He watered them every morning, just like she’d asked, though it felt less like care and more like holding on to a thread. The basil had started to flower, the leaves curling toward the light. He wondered if she’d notice, if she ever came back.
In the first few days, he expected a knock on the door, a message, even a forgotten sweater returned as an excuse to see him. But waiting had its quiet cruelty. It stretched time like taffy, each day sticky with what-ifs.
He caught himself listening for her footsteps in the hall, her hum in the shower, the small, absent-minded way she’d tap her fingers on the counter when thinking. The apartment wasn’t empty; it was full of echoes and memories that refused to fade.
One night, he found her scarf tucked behind the couch cushion. It smelled faintly of her rose and rain. He sat there with it in his hands far longer than he meant to, as though it might whisper the answers her note hadn’t given.
It wasn’t the end. But the waiting had begun to shape itself into something dangerous, something that felt like she was slipping through his fingers without even moving.
And every day he didn’t hear from her, he feared the truth: Maybe the note was a goodbye. She just hadn’t written it that way.