Chasing Shadows: Her

The apartment felt heavy with silence, thicker than any words she could offer. His voice lingered in the air sometimes, soft, hopeful, but she moved through the rooms like smoke, untouchable. Her eyes darted anywhere but toward him. She couldn’t bear to see what waited there, what he was.

Outside, the city buzzed, traffic, laughter, neon music spilling from crowded bars, but inside, the quiet pressed on me like a weight she couldn’t shake. Invisible threads pulled me away, further from him, further and further from the us we used to be. When he reached for her, no matter how close his arms were, she was already halfway gone.

She remembered the bright beginning, when the neon lights glowed steady and our hope burned without question. But even neon fades. Their flame sputtered like a faulty bulb, blinking weakly until the darkness swallowed it. Her laughter, once there’s, now slipped out at the wrong moments, belonging to places he couldn’t follow.

She was drifting, further from the home they built, further from the love he clung too. She wondered if he saw her at all, or only the shadow that was left behind.

And still, he stayed. Still, he reached. Maybe that was his love or maybe it was just the ache of refusing to let go.

Chasing shadows.
Chasing me.