He looks at her, but not really. His gaze is somewhere else—somewhere she can’t reach, somewhere she wasn’t invited. And she feels it, the weight of being second, the quiet sting of being a placeholder for someone who still lingers in his every breath.
He loves her, maybe, but not the way she wants to be loved. Not the way he loved her.
She wonders what their mornings were like. Did he wake up to her laugh, soft and unguarded? Did they share sleepy smiles and tangled sheets, the kind of warmth that felt like home? Did he watch her with a tenderness that she could only dream of? It hurts to think about, but she can’t stop herself.
She sees it in his hesitation, in the way his hands brush against her like he’s searching for someone else’s skin.
Did her touch feel lighter? Did her laugh echo louder? Did her presence make his world feel steady in a way hers never could? It’s cruel, this spiral of thoughts, but it’s worse not knowing. Because she knows—she knows—that there’s a ghost in the room, and it’s not going anywhere.
Every time he looks at her, she feels the weight of that ghost. In the way he pulls away too quickly, in the way his smile fades when the silence gets too loud. She wonders if the memories of her haunt him like they haunt her. If he remembers the scent of her hair, the curve of her smile, the way she fit perfectly into his world.
She asks herself, Is this enough? This love, this half-hearted attempt at moving forward, this aching reminder that she will always be second best.
She wants it to be enough. She wants to believe that she can love him enough to make him forget, to erase the marks someone else left on his heart.
But deep down, she knows. He can say he loves her all he wants, but there’s a part of him that’s still holding on to a past he can’t let go of. And that part? It’s the one she’ll never have.
It hurts. It kills. Because she knows what it’s like to give someone everything you have, only to realize they’re still longing for someone else. And the worst part? She can’t even be angry. Because how do you compete with a memory?
