THE GIRL WHO LOVED AFTER LOSING

THE SILENT SPACES BETWEEN US

He left.

And with him, something shifted — not all at once, but slowly, like a door you didn’t realize was closing until it shut behind you.

The first week, we still laughed.

He’d video call from his small apartment, show me the view from his window, and say things like,

"Chicken, when you're finally here, I’ll cook you rice and burnt stew — just like you like it."

We still joked.

Still prayed together.

Still felt like we had control over the narrative.

But then came the time zone confusion.

My 6 p.m. was his 1 p.m.

His busy hour was my lonely night.

And I would wait… staring at my screen, watching two ticks turn blue, hoping they'd turn into a voice message.

And when they didn’t — I convinced myself it was work.

Because he told me it was work.

Because I wanted to believe it was work.

But then the waiting became routine.

I’d send “Good morning, Turkey ” and get a reply… maybe 10 hours later.

Maybe not at all.

And even when he replied, something in the message was missing.

The warmth.

The urgency.

The us.

I tried to fill the silence with texts. Long ones. Vulnerable

ones.

“I miss you.”

“Are we okay?”

“Do you still love me the way you used to?”

And his responses…

Always calm. Always understanding.

But never reassuring enough.

He’d say,

“I do love you, Chicken. But work is just really crazy now.”

Or,

“We’ll talk soon, okay?”

But “soon” started to stretch.

It stretched over my tears, my anxiety, my ache.

It stretched over the nights I fell asleep staring at our photos.

It stretched until it felt like I was in a relationship with his memory, not his presence.

I started nagging.

Not because I wanted to fight — but because I wanted to feel him.

I needed proof that I still mattered.

So I’d say,

“You don’t call.”

“You don’t check on me.”

“You’re forgetting us.”

And he’d sigh. Or reply late. Or not at all.

Sometimes I imagined him reading my messages, shaking his head, thinking I was overreacting.

And maybe I was.

But also… maybe I wasn’t.

Because love — real love — doesn’t go silent.

It doesn’t feel like begging for scraps of attention from someone who once looked at you like you were the air in their lungs.

Still, I held on.

I told myself, “Maybe tomorrow, it’ll get better.”

That tomorrow never came.

The silence had grown too loud.

And I was slowly losing my mind trying to translate every unread message, every dry response, every quiet exit from a call.

It was the beginning of the end.

And yet… I still loved him.