What If I Stayed - Part Two: hen & Now
Some goodbyes aren’t really goodbyes.
Not when the memories still live in the walls.
Not when you can still taste what it meant to be loved by them.What
In this next part of What If I Stayed, we go back—back to the moment it started, and the moment it all fell apart. Because sometimes, before you can move forward, you have to remember exactly what you lost… and why it still matters.
What If I Stayed - Part Two: hen & Now
Before the goodbye, there was everything.
Eli
The door shut louder in my memory than it ever did in real life.
Now, standing in the same hallway a year later, it’s quiet. Still. Like the house moved on without me and didn’t need to slam the door again to make its point.
I run my fingers along the edge of the side table, pausing when they hit the frame that never moved, one of those old candid photos Caleb’s sister took. We were on the back porch, both laughing at something that’s long since slipped my mind. My hand’s blurry in the picture, caught mid-gesture, but Caleb’s smile is sharp. Bright. He was looking at me like I was the only one there. Like maybe I’d already ruined him and didn’t know it yet.
I almost say his name out loud.
Almost let it leave my mouth, like maybe if I speak it, everything else will follow.
But I don’t. I can’t.
There’s too much between then and now. Too much I don’t know how to ask for.
Like forgiveness. Or another chance.
Like whether the version of me that stayed away is the one he remembers.
I want to tell him I didn’t stop loving him.
That even in places I liked, cities I swore I’d never leave again—there was something missing.
I want to tell him that I looked for pieces of him everywhere.
In strangers who held their coffee the same way.
In waiters who laughed too loud.
In roommates who never understood why I never brought anyone home for more than a night.
It was never the same.
No one knew how to fill the quiet like he did.
No one ever made it feel like silence wasn’t something that had to be broken.
That every bed without him felt colder.
That every quiet morning made me want to call, and every time I didn’t felt like betrayal.
That I didn’t come back because I thought I deserved him.
I came back because I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t.
But none of that makes it past my lips.
I just stand there, still gripping the damn picture frame like it might give me answers, and wonder if he can feel it too. If something in the air still pulls tight when I’m near. If he’s in his room right now, awake, thinking about all the things we never said.
Maybe that’s the cruelest part of it all, how grief can linger for something you never really lost.
Because it’s not like he died.
He just stopped being mine.
And I stopped being brave enough to fight for what I wanted.
Maybe coming back was selfish.
Maybe it was brave.
Maybe I wanted him to yell. To slam the door again and give me the clarity I’ve been avoiding.
But he didn’t. He let me in.
And I don’t know what the hell to do with that.
My thumb rubs over the edge of the glass, smearing the surface until the image distorts.
“If I’d stayed…” I whisper.
The rest doesn’t come.
Just hangs there, broken and suspended.
Like maybe, if I leave the sentence unfinished.
The words barely leave my mouth before I hear it—the soft creak of a floorboard near the hallway.
Caleb steps into view, sleep-rumpled and barefoot, like I conjured him with nothing more than memory and regret.
His eyes lock on mine. He doesn’t speak.
I don’t either.
We just stand there.
Two ghosts in the same haunted place.
His jaw flexes like he’s trying to decide if he should speak, if I’m worth the words. If I’ve earned them. His gaze drops to the photo still clutched in my hand, then flicks back up.
“How long have you been up?” he asks, voice rough with sleep or maybe it’s something else.
“A while.”
I clear my throat. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Caleb nods once. Slow. Measured. Like he’s still protecting something, even now.
“You always were good at running from rest,” he says.
It’s not a jab. Not exactly.
But it lands.
I set the photo frame back down, careful this time, like mishandling it might crack something else wide open.
He shifts on his feet, and for a second, I think he’s going to leave. Turn around. Pretend this moment didn’t just scrape against everything we buried.
But then he speaks again.
“You meant it, didn’t you?”
His voice is quieter now. Not accusing… just tired. “When you said ‘if I’d stayed’…”
I look at him, and for once, don’t hide.
“Yeah,” I say. “I did.”
He nods again, but this time, slower. Something flickers in his expression, anger, maybe. Or the outline of something softer beneath it.
Then he says, “Get some sleep, Eli.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
Just turns and walks back down the hallway, barefoot steps echoing louder than they should.
And I’m left standing there, heart in my throat, the taste of almost still sharp on my tongue.
