It started as a dull ache, a phantom limb of the soul. A constant, buzzing emptiness where something vital used to be. For years, I told myself it was grief. Pure, unadulterated grief for a love that simply… vanished. He was gone. That’s all I allowed myself to remember.
We were inseparable, him and I. Every moment felt painted in the most vibrant colors, lit by an inner sun. His laugh was a melody I carried in my bones, his touch a warmth that chased away every shadow. We spoke of forever, not as a childish dream, but as a certainty, solid and real. He was my anchor, my compass, my entire horizon. He was everything. And then, one day, he wasn’t.
The world went mute after that. The colors drained, the music stopped. I stumbled through days, then weeks, then months, a hollow echo in a soundless room. People offered condolences, their voices muffled, their faces blurred. They didn’t understand. How could they? They talked about tragic circumstances, about fate, about how things sometimes just… happen. I clung to those words, built a fortress of them around my raw, bleeding heart. It wasn’t my fault. It was just… life. A cruel, random act.
An ill older woman looking out a window | Source: Midjourney
I moved away. Changed my routine. Cut ties with anyone who might remind me too much of the before. I built a new life, brick by painful brick, on the foundations of forgetfulness. I learned to smile again, to nod, to even laugh at times. But the ache remained, a low thrum beneath the surface, a constant reminder of the gaping void. Sometimes, late at night, I’d trace the outline of his absence in the sheets beside me. A memory, a scent, a flash of his smile would ambush me, and I’d push it down, hard. “He’s gone,” I’d whisper, “and you can’t change it.”
But lately, the whispers have grown louder. Not his, but mine. Internal doubts, little tremors in the carefully constructed facade. A flicker of an image, too fast to grasp, but unsettling. A sound, not a melody, but a jarring screech that would send a cold dread through me. What was that? Where did that come from? I dismissed it. Stress. Residual trauma. My mind playing tricks. Grief does that, right? It twists things, makes you question your own sanity.
The nightmares became more frequent. Not of him leaving, but of something else. Something chaotic. Flashing lights. A sickening lurch. A deafening crash. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, the phantom ache intensified into a searing burn. But the details were always elusive, like trying to catch smoke. Just a feeling of sheer terror, and an overwhelming, crushing guilt that had no logical source. Why do I feel so guilty? I lost him. I was the one left behind.
Rings in a jewelry box | Source: Midjourney
Then, last week, I visited my old hometown. A strange compulsion, after all these years. I drove past our old haunts, the park bench where we carved our initials, the small cafe with the terrible coffee we loved so much. Each place was a pinprick, letting out a little more air from my carefully inflated bubble of amnesia.
I drove further, down the winding country road that led to the old lookout point, our secret spot. The air grew heavy, the trees seemed to watch me. A knot tightened in my stomach. No, don’t go there. Don’t go any further. But my hands were steady on the wheel, my foot pressed the accelerator. It was like I was watching myself, a passenger in my own body.
And then I saw it. Not the lookout point, but something before it. A small, weathered memorial plaque, half-hidden by overgrown bushes, commemorating a roadside fatality. I slowed down, my breath catching in my throat. No. It can’t be. It was so far from any intersection, any real danger. A straight stretch of road.
A bouquet of flowers on a casket | Source: Midjourney
I pulled over, my hands shaking so violently I could barely open the car door. The plaque bore a date. THE EXACT DATE. The date his life, and my world, ended.
My legs felt like jelly as I walked towards it, pushing aside the branches. And there, etched in the metal, was his name. His full name. And a small, faded photograph. His smiling face, forever young.
My eyes scanned the rest of the inscription, every word a hammer blow to the wall I’d built. “Remembering [His Name]… Passed away at this location… Driver lost control…”
Driver.
Driver.
The word echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of my mind. Driver.
And then, the smoke began to clear. The flashes of light. The lurch. The screech. The impact. It wasn’t him leaving me. It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t a random tragedy I was helpless to prevent.
An emotional woman standing in a bathroom | Source: Midjourney
I was driving.
I WAS DRIVING.
The memory slammed into me, a tidal wave of raw, unadulterated horror. The argument. A stupid, petty disagreement about the future, about a choice. My anger, my frustration, my careless glance away from the road for just one second too long. His surprised gasp. His hand reaching for mine, not in love, but in a desperate, last-second plea for control. The sickening slide. The sickening THUD.
I had been behind the wheel. I was the driver who lost control.
And I survived. He didn’t.
My mind, in its infinite mercy, had wiped it clean. Replaced the unforgivable truth with a palatable, grief-stricken lie. It had protected me from the monster I was, from the devastating reality that I WAS THE REASON HE WAS GONE.
The ache. The guilt. The nightmares. They weren’t from losing him. They were from killing him.
d me?
An open laptop on a table | Source: Midjourney
I crumpled to the ground, the earth cold and hard beneath me. The sun, which had always seemed to mock my sorrow, now felt like a spotlight on my grotesque truth. Every tear I had shed, every moment of self-pity, every whisper of “he’s gone” now tasted like ash.
My heart remembered. It always remembered. And now, the mind had finally given up its fight.
There was no vanishing. There was no fate. There was just me. And the unbearable weight of what I did. I didn’t lose him to circumstance. I took him away. And now, the true grief begins.
