101

101
Point of view: Clara

I woke up before the sun rose, the room still drowning in shadows, but my mind was already spinning like it was midday. My eyes burned from a night of restless sleep. The pillow still held the warmth of old tears, and my throat was dry from swallowing everything I felt. I didn’t need a mirror to know that the reflection would show someone unfamiliar—worn down, quiet, a sketch of the woman I was beside Bela.

I got up with effort and went straight to the kitchen. The smell of weak coffee, made by my friend before she left for work, filled the air. I drank it without sugar, without taste, without rush. Nothing felt enough.

I returned to the bedroom with the half-finished cup in hand, sitting on the edge of the bed like someone waiting for something that might never come. My phone was beside me, flashing useless notifications. None from her. None from Bela.

Her name was still pinned at the top of my messages. Like an open wound I revisited every day—for guilt, for longing, out of habit. Every time I opened the conversation, it stung, like my fingers were betraying my pride and running back to where I knew it still hurt.

I typed.

“Hey.”

Deleted it.

Typed again.

“How are you?”

Deleted that too.

I closed my eyes, trying to think of how to start a conversation after everything. What do you say to someone you hurt out of fear? How do you reclaim space when you were the one who asked for distance?

Finally, I let my heart type:

“Is it too late to talk?”

I hit send. Without overthinking, without calculating the tone. I just sent it.

Regret hit seconds later. And with it, panic.

I grabbed the phone like I could pull the message back from the screen, erase it from existence. But it was too late. It was there, delivered. Read or not, the vulnerability had already been exposed.

I stared at the screen for minutes that felt like hours. Each second a needle. My stomach twisted in silence, and I wanted to hide from the world, from myself.

And then came the reply.

But it wasn’t from her.

“Hi, this is Lívia. Bela left her phone with me. Can I help with something?”

Lívia.

The name dropped like a bucket of ice water down my spine.

For a moment, I thought I had misread. I blinked, read it again. But the message was clear.

Bela... was with Lívia?

She... left her phone with her? Forgot it? Where were they? What were they doing?

There was no context. Just that name—until then only a distant shadow—becoming too concrete, too real.

My hands trembled as I reread the message. “Left her phone with me.” That was all—nothing about meeting, no mention of a conversation, just the phone.

Still, my chest tightened. A mix of relief for some contact, and fear from knowing someone else now had access to what used to be mine—Bela’s intimate world.

I opened the conversation and typed a simple response:

“Hey, no worries. Thanks for letting me know. I just wanted to check that she's okay.”

Sent. And I hated myself for sounding so calm.

I closed the phone and set it aside, as if it burned. I paced the room like a trapped animal. My chest was tight, my eyes welling. I sat on the edge of the bed and finally broke. Quiet, curled up. I didn’t scream, didn’t throw anything—I just cried.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not exactly. It was loss.

It was the pain of realizing that maybe she wasn’t waiting anymore. That maybe she was finally allowing herself to look in another direction. One that didn’t include my name.

I’d left her waiting for answers that never came. I made her live in pause, smothered between my fears and my cowardice. And now, she was moving on.

How could I blame her for that?

I stood up slowly, my body heavy. I walked to the window and opened the curtains, letting the light in. It was an ordinary morning, but the world felt different. More distant. Quieter. Less mine.

Hours passed. I ate without appetite. Turned off social media. Tried to write, but nothing came out. My thoughts were stuck on that reply that didn’t come from Bela—and the one that maybe never would.

When night fell, I found myself staring at our chat again. The last thing I’d written was still there, right above Lívia’s message. “Is it too late to talk?”

Now it felt like a foolish echo, floating in the air.

Even so, I took a deep breath and typed:

“When you have your phone back... let me know? I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Sent.

No embellishments. No apologies. Just truth.

After that, I lay in silence. The phone stayed under the pillow. And I lay there, in the dark, not knowing if she’d see it. Not knowing if she wanted to.

But at least now... she’d know I was still here.

Even if it was too late.

Even if I was broken.

Even if I was scared.