I brushed my teeth this morning.
That's how it began. Just that. The most normal, boring act in the world. Nothing profound. No soft music in the background. No slow-motion shots of healing. Just me, standing in front of the mirror, doing something I hadn't done in a couple of days.
And then I made tea.
And I drank it while it was still warm.
That would've been unimaginable even two weeks ago— when I'd forget the water was boiling until it evaporated, or leave tea bags floating like ghosts in a cold cup. But today… today I somehow remembered. Today, I sipped it while it was still steeping heat into my palms.
So maybe I am coping.
Maybe I'm healing.
Or maybe I'm just replacing things. Quietly. Without noticing. Just to hurt a bit less?
Because that's how it happens, doesn't it? Not all at once. Not with some big, definitive act of moving on. But in little ways. The tiny switches. The silent substitutions. I still check your profile the moment I wake up. In a hope that maybe you'll send a a message or something.
But I don't scroll through our old chats every night now. I no longer pause when I hear your name in a song— at least not every time.
You've been replaced by habits. By silence. By absence dressed in structure. At least that's what I'm trying to do.
That doesn't mean it stopped hurting.
If anything, it hurts differently now. Less like a wound, more like someone's clenching my heart. Like when you enter a room that used to be full of laughter, and now it's just still. Just air and memory and awful suffocation.
Sometimes I open my phone, not looking for anything in particular— just out of habit. Then I realize I was hoping to see your name flash across the screen. I wasn't even aware of it. But the letdown that follows? It's a bit more familiar now. Like brushing past a wall you forgot was there.
I scroll. Maybe watch something. I go outside if I have to. But inside? There's still a version of me sitting in the same spot you left me in. A quiet boy. Still waiting. Still wondering what the hell went wrong.
There are days when I laugh— genuinely laugh— and then feel guilty about it. Like healing is betrayal. Like forgetting one detail about you is a crime against the part of me that still worships your ghost.
I've started forgetting small things.
Your voice is getting softer in my head now. Not as vivid. The exact tone of your "hmm" or the way you used to say "wait, listen—" before telling me something dumb or brilliant or both… it's starting to fade. I catch myself trying to remember, to not forget it, like rewinding a cassette tape that's beginning to wear thin. Cause once I do that, I can't hear it anymore. Not even inside my head. And if I can't get it right, it terrifies me.
It feels like losing you all over again.
Is that healing? Or is that just decay?
Sometimes I feel okay. I do. And that's what scares me more than anything. Because when I feel okay, I think, what if I forget her completely?
What if I become one of those people who can only recall a relationship through photos and timestamps?
What if you become just another name in a memory I don't trust anymore?
I don't want that. I never did.
But I also don't want this ache anymore.
It's like being stuck between fire and frost— burning when I remember you, and freezing when I don't.
I've started playing a new playlist. It doesn't have our songs on it. I didn't do it intentionally— it just happened. Although some music definitely reminds me of you. But one day I realized none of them were "ours." Just music. And still, when one of our songs pops up accidentally, I don't skip it. I let it play. And I let it hurt. As a reminder.
Because I don't want to replace you completely. I just want to learn how to live with the part of me that still needs to remember you.
It's exhausting. And it's killing me slowly.
Everyone says time heals. But no one tells you that healing feels a lot like pretending. Pretending to be fine. Pretending to move on. Pretending you don't flinch when someone says her name, or when the sky looks the same shade it did the last time you saw her smile.
I've started writing again. Not just these chapters. Not just "Letters to Her." But little things. Notes. Thoughts. Some of them have nothing to do with you, and that feels… weird. Wrong, even. Makes me feel guilty, but also relieving.
Maybe that's what moving on really looks like? Not replacing someone with another person. But with parts of yourself you'd buried to make room for them.
Even this chapter— this space— wasn't supposed to be about you. But it became about you anyway. Like everything I write eventually does. Maybe that's what love is: the background radiation in everything you do, even after it's gone.
But even if your voice gets replaced with silence, your texts with white space, your memory with distance… I still feel it.
That fear.
That you're doing better. That you don't remember me like I remember you. Or remember me at all. That you've replaced me quietly, even when I don't want you to be replaced from mine.
And maybe you are. Or maybe you already did.
Quietly. Unconsciously. Strongly.
Not in loud ways. Not in ways anyone else would notice. Or even me.
Just… with other songs. Other thoughts. Other mornings. Other silences. Maybe even other people? Someone New. Different. Better?
The Quiet replacements.
And maybe one day, you'll feel it too. My absence.
Or maybe not. Am I asking for too much?
But today— right now— this is where I am.
Still hurting. Still hoping.
Still brushing my teeth.
Still replacing.
Still pretending not to miss you.