He said he needed to press pause. Just for a little while. To visit his family in Washington. He promised he’d call when he got there. I believed him. We’d been together for years; this wasn’t like us. We talked about everything. I sent a text after a day, “Hey, let me know you landed safely! Say hi to your mom for me.” No response. Okay, maybe he’s just busy settling in. I tried again the next day. Still nothing. My stomach started to knot. A slow, chilling dread began to seep into my bones.
A week passed. A week of my phone clutched in my hand, jumping at every notification that wasn’t him. My heart would leap, then plummet. I called. Straight to voicemail. I left a message, voice trembling, “Did… did you break up with me? Just tell me.” The silence on the other end felt like a scream.
My friends were furious for me. “He totally ghosted you,” they said. “What a jerk.” I tried to rationalize it. Maybe his phone broke. Maybe he’s lost in the wilderness. But deep down, I knew. Four weeks of silence. Four weeks of my heart shattering into a million pieces every single day. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Every memory of us felt like a fresh wound.
I started to delete his pictures. It felt like tearing off my own skin. I tried to move on. I had to move on. The agony of not knowing was unbearable, worse than any definitive breakup. But a part of me, a small, stubborn voice, kept whispering, this isn’t like him. Not really. It just didn’t fit the man I loved.
Then the call came. Not from him. From an unknown number. I almost didn’t answer. It was my aunt. My estranged aunt. The one I hadn’t spoken to in over a decade. My hand started to shake.
Her voice was tight, thin. “I… I heard what happened. I’m so sorry.” My blood ran cold. He broke the pause? He’s back? What happened? “What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I could barely breathe.
She explained. He hadn’t gone to his family. He’d gone to mine. To Washington. He’d secretly reached out to them, trying to bridge the gap between us, to fix what I thought was unfixable. He knew how much I missed them, even if I never admitted it. He was trying to surprise me, to bring us all back together.
He was on his way to meet them for the first time. To tell them how much he loved me, how much he wanted to see me happy, reunited with them. He was driving in the mountains, a long winding road to their isolated cabin.
A deer. A sudden swerve. A tree. He never made it.
The pause wasn’t his. The silence wasn’t him ghosting me. It was the universe delivering a cruel, irreversible punch. He hadn’t abandoned me. He was trying to bring me home. And he died trying.
I replay his last words. “Just a little pause.” He meant a pause in my pain. Not a pause in us. I thought I was heartbroken then. I had NO IDEA what heartbreak truly was. It’s not the silence. It’s the reason for it.
