Something That Still Needs

By Vanshika Gupta

I keep reading articles about how to say goodbye, but none of them are right. People talk

about it like it’s simple—a final word, a door closing, a life folding into silence. But endings

are never clean. They unravel in whispers, slipping between hours long before you realise

they’ve already begun.

I can feel it through you—in the soft pauses between your words, in the careful way you say

my name, as if it might slip if you’re not gentle. I see it in those extra minutes you spend

staring at my face, the way you just watch me breathe, counting quietly, like you’re making

sure I’m still here. The air around us has grown heavy, thick with everything we’re trying not

to say. Even the light seems to hesitate lately, falling softer, as though it’s afraid to make a

sound. It’s a strange thing—watching yourself slowly turn into a memory even before you’re

gone.

People say death is the most frightening part of loss, but it isn’t. What truly unsettles is the

leaving—the quiet way life rearranges itself without asking. The mornings you wake to find

my absence already settling beside you. How my name will stop echoing through these

rooms. How the spaces I once filled will learn to breathe without me. And somewhere

between sunrise and your first sip of coffee, I’ll simply fade.

So I thought of something that would keep needing you even after I’m gone. I gave you a

pot—small and plain, wrapped in glossy paper with uneven folds and a crooked red bow tied

clumsily around it. You held it carefully, almost afraid to take it, as if touching it might make

this real. I watched every small shift—the crease between your brows, the brief tightening of

your jaw. You didn’t ask, and I didn’t explain. But the question was there, brimming in your

eyes: why something so simple, so unlike me? Then you smiled—not the easy kind I used to

chase, but a smaller, fragile one that never quite reached your eyes. I felt it then—the ache,

the knowing. You saw it for what it was: not a gift, but a goodbye dressed in ribbon and

light—my way of saying you won’t forget me. When you said you’d keep it close, I heard it

in your voice—the kind of promise that doesn’t need words. So I nodded and promised to

love you back.

I know the pot will find its place in your living room—on the sill, just past the stack of old

letters and the photo frame we never fixed. You’ll water it in the mornings, fuss when the

leaves droop, worry when they wilt. You’ll care for it the way you cared for me: softly,

relentlessly, with every bit of love that has nowhere else to go. But love like that never learns

to rest.

There will be nights when everything hurts—when the air grows heavy and the walls start to

close in. You’ll clutch your hair, pace the room, maybe break something just to hear it shatter.

You’ll scream into the dark, beg the sky, curse the silence for being too loud. And when the

noise finally settles, the room will go still—only the faint echo of my name lingering in the

air. You’ll find the pot again—still there, still waiting, still holding on. You’ll stare at it until

sleep finally takes you.

Time will move on. Light will spill through the same old cracks. The ache will shrink, tucking

itself into corners, faint enough that you almost stop noticing. The empty cup you leave by the

sink, the chair pushed in—none of it will sting the way it once did. You’ll realise you’ve

learned to live with my absence. What once felt hollow will start to fill itself with familiar

things.

Maybe someday someone else will reach for your hand—someone who’ll stay where I

couldn’t. I hope you let her. Let her see the parts of you I loved most, the ones you keep

hidden when the days grow heavy. Let her laughter fill the hush I’m leaving behind; maybe

she’ll teach you how to smile again, to trust, to stay. And when your fingers find hers, I hope

it isn’t with guilt. I hope she loves you in all the ways I didn’t get to.

Seasons will turn without you noticing; sunlight will keep finding new ways to enter the

room. And then, on some ordinary morning, you’ll see it—a small blue opening, the first bell

of bloom. You’ll stop, touch it gently, trace the petals the way you traced my back. And

maybe then you’ll understand—all those days, every glance, every moment—they were

quietly bringing me back to you.

You’ll know why I chose them. Forget-me-nots.

By Vanshika Gupta