Unfinished Conversations
1059 Words
The smell of cut grass and damp wood hit Anna before she even stepped through the screen door.
It was all still here—the tiny hum of the old fridge, the groan of the floorboard near the kitchen table, and the scent of lemon polish Aunt Margie always used when she was anxious. The kind that lingered on surfaces for days, like it could scrub away time itself.
Home wasn’t supposed to feel like a stranger wearing your mother’s clothes. Familiar on the outside. Hollow underneath.
"You're skinnier than I remember," Aunt Margie called from the back room, her voice scratchy with sleep and just the right amount of judgment. “City life not feeding you anymore?”
Anna smiled faintly as she closed the door behind her. “Just the overpriced kind.”
She dropped her bag by the couch and glanced around the living room. Nothing had changed. Not the dusty collection of angel figurines on the mantle. Not the stack of dog-eared magazines on the coffee table. Not the quilt folded over the back of the same armchair Mike once fell asleep in after too many rounds of Mario Kart. Back when life was simple and stupid and full of the kind of promises you think will last forever.
Her name was still carved in the corner of the window frame beside his.
Anna + Mike
Forever.
The sight of it made her chest twist.
She turned away before the memory could punch her square in the heart.
Outside, a truck door slammed shut.
Anna peeked through the curtain.
Sure enough, he hadn’t left.
Mike stood in the yard, hands shoved in his pockets, staring up at the sky like it might answer all the things he didn’t say. Like it might finally give him the reasons she never gave him.
She watched him for a moment, safe behind the curtain, before guilt wrapped itself around her ribs like a vine. It was unfair, how easily he fit into this place. How steady he looked, even when everything inside her was still shaking.
Ten minutes later, she found him in the driveway, leaning against the hood of his truck again, same as before. Like he never left. Like they never ended.
“I thought you left,” she said.
Mike looked over but didn’t move. “I did. Came back.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, gaze fixed on a patch of gravel near his feet. “Felt like we weren’t finished.”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest. “We were never finished, Mike. That was the problem.”
He finally looked at her, and this time, it wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t the warm kind of quiet that used to make her feel safe. It was colder. Sharper. Real.
“You left without a word, Anna,” he said, voice low and even. “You didn’t even come to the funeral.”
The words hit like gravel to the chest.
She staggered inwardly, mouth opening, then closing again. Nothing came out. Nothing good, anyway.
No excuse would make it better. She knew that. Still, her voice came out small. Fragile.
“I couldn’t.”
Mike’s jaw clenched as he looked away, the muscle twitching in that way it always did when he was trying not to feel something.
“You didn’t even try.”
His words weren’t loud, but they left bruises anyway.
The silence that followed was tight and raw, stretching between them like a thread pulled too thin. Anna stared at the sky for a moment, unable to meet his eyes again. She didn’t deserve to.
She hadn’t just walked away from him.
She walked away from everything.
The funeral. The grief. The goodbye she still wasn’t ready to give.
“I didn’t know how,” she said eventually, her voice barely a whisper. “It felt too big. Like if I came back then, I’d fall apart and never come back together.”
“You think we didn’t?” he snapped, finally stepping away from the truck. “You think I didn’t fall apart? You think your aunt didn’t? You think any of us had the luxury to not show up just because it was hard?”
She flinched, tears threatening behind her eyes but not yet falling.
“I was scared,” she admitted.
Mike laughed then, but there was no humour in it. Just the brittle sound of someone trying not to care anymore. Trying, and failing.
“Yeah. Me too.”
The wind picked up, swirling a few dead leaves at their feet. The porch swing creaked behind them, adding a ghostly soundtrack to the confrontation neither of them wanted, but both needed.
“I didn’t know how to say goodbye,” Anna said after a long pause.
“You didn’t say anything,” he shot back. “Not one thing. You just vanished.”
She stared at him now, really looked. There were lines on his face that hadn’t been there before. Small ones around his mouth. A faint scar near his eyebrow she didn’t recognise. Life had moved on without her, and it had left its mark.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the words finally breaking free. “I know it’s not enough. But I am.”
Mike stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
“You think saying sorry makes it easier?” he asked, voice quieter now. “It doesn’t. But it’s a start.”
She nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat.
That night, Anna lay awake in the old guest room, staring up at the ceiling fan as it spun a slow, steady circle above her head. It groaned faintly, just like everything else in this house—too old to be perfect, too familiar to ignore.
She could still hear Mike’s voice in her head.
You didn’t even come to the funeral.
The truth of it sat heavy in her chest. She hadn’t come. She hadn’t said goodbye to the woman who helped raise her, or the boy who once thought they had forever.
Maybe coming back now wasn’t about helping Aunt Margie.
Maybe it was about finally finishing the conversations she ran away from.
Maybe it was about facing what she left behind—and hoping, just maybe, some pieces of her still belonged here.
- Writer
