MAYBE SOME DAY PART 3: Six Months of Silence

Hey Jacky, how was your chemistry test? 

I kept thinking about that redox equation we worked on. Miss you already.

Send.

I stared at my phone for three hours. Nothing.

Maybe she was busy. Maybe her phone died. Maybe her parents were monitoring her messages now that I wasn't around to help with homework anymore.

Tuesday evening.

Just wanted to say hi. New school is okay but different. Tell me about your day?

Send.

Nothing.

Week Two.

Jacky, I know you're probably busy with exams, but I'm worried. Can you just send me one word so I know you're okay?

Send.

I checked my phone every morning before class and every night before sleep. Nothing.

"You keep checking that thing like you're expecting news from the president," Kenny joked during our first week at the new school.

I forced a laugh. "Just keeping in touch with friends from the old school."

But friends respond to messages. Friends don't leave you hanging in digital silence.

Week Three.

I keep starting messages and deleting them. I don't know what I did wrong, but can we talk? I miss talking to you.

Send.

That night I wrote a letter by hand. Pages and pages of everything I couldn't say in a text. How much she meant to me. How the colour game still made me smile. How I understood if her parents didn't approve, but couldn't we figure it out together?

I read it three times. Sealed it in an envelope. Wrote her address carefully.

Then I tore it up and threw it away.

Month Two.

Jacky, I heard what your father said that day. "This poor guy again. Not in our lineage." I've been carrying this alone for weeks. Can we please talk about it?

Type. Delete. Type. Delete.

I know your family doesn't think I'm good enough. Maybe they're right. But what we have is real, isn't it?

Delete.

I love you. That has to count for something.

Delete.

I'm drowning here, Jacky. Please.

Delete everything.

Finally:

Are you getting my messages?

Send.

Still nothing.

Month Three.

I stopped trying to be casual.

It's been three months since you've responded to anything. Three months since I heard your voice. I dream about the colour game, about chemistry homework, about sitting under the jacaranda tree. I dream about you laughing at my stupid jokes. Then I wake up and remember that for some reason, I don't exist in your world anymore.

If you want me to stop writing, just tell me. If you never want to see me again, I'll understand. But this silence is killing me. I'd rather you hate me than ignore me.

Send.

I threw my phone across the room after sending it. Then scrambled to pick it up in case she responded.

She didn't.

Month Four.

Today marks four months since you last said my name. I remember it exactly — you said "Martin, what's wrong?" when I was quiet after visiting your house. I should have told you then. I should have said I heard your father dismiss me like I was nothing. Heard you defend me by asking him to at least pretend to respect me.

I should have said that "poor guy" felt like a knife in my chest. That "not in our lineage" made me understand I was never really a possibility for you. Just a distraction until someone appropriate came along.

But I didn't say any of that. I kissed your forehead and got on the bus and let the silence grow between us until it became this canyon I can't cross.

I'm still here on the other side, waiting.

Send.

My mother found me crying over my phone that night.

"Martin, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Mom. Just tired."

She sat on my bed anyway. "You've been 'just tired' for months now. This is about that girl, isn't it? Jacky?"

I couldn't lie anymore. "She won't talk to me. Won't respond to anything. It's like I never existed."

Mom was quiet for a long time. "Some relationships end not with a fight, but with silence. Sometimes people can't face the goodbye, so they just… disappear."

"But why?"

"Maybe because saying goodbye would make it real. Maybe because she's hurting too."

Month Five.

I'm learning to accept that you're not coming back. Learning to stop checking my phone every day. Learning to stop seeing you in every girl who wears her hair in a braid or likes to read novels.

But I can't accept that what we had meant nothing. I can't accept that the girl who chose purple in the colour game, the girl who made chemistry magical, the girl who told me her dreams under the jacaranda tree — I can't accept that she could just erase me like this.

If you're reading these messages and choosing not to respond, then you're not the person I thought I loved. The Jacky I knew would never be this cruel.

If you're not reading them… well, then I'm talking to a ghost.

Send.

Month Six.

I stopped writing novels. Started writing single lines.

I miss you.

Do you think about me at all?

I'm starting to hate the colour purple.

Today would have been our anniversary of the colour game.

I deleted your number three times this week. Kept putting it back.

This is probably my last message.

Goodbye, Jacky.

Send.

I thought it was over. I thought I could finally start healing.

Then, two days later, my phone buzzed.

Her name on the screen. After six months of silence, finally, a response.

My hands shook as I opened it.

Martin, I don't want to be with you anymore.

That was it. Six months of agony, and she gave me twelve words. No explanation. No acknowledgment of the messages I'd poured my heart into. No recognition that I'd been writing to silence for half a year.

Just: I don't want to be with you anymore.

I stared at those words until they blurred. Six months of hoping. Of believing that somewhere in the silence she was struggling too. That she missed me but couldn't figure out how to bridge the gap her family had created.

Six months of giving her the benefit of the doubt.

And this was what I got. A dismissal colder than her father's poor guy.

I called her.

She answered on the fourth ring.

"Martin—"

"That's it?" My voice cracked. "Six months of silence, and that's all you have to say to me?"

"Martin, please—"

"I know everything, Jacky." The words came out in a rush. "I know what your father said. I know what you said. I heard it all."

Silence. Then, so quietly I almost couldn't hear it:

"What did you hear?"

"'This poor guy again, Jacky? I told you that he's not in our lineage.' 'Jacky, Dad, at least pretend.'"

The silence stretched so long I thought the call had dropped.

Finally: "I've been fighting, Martin. I've been fighting for months. But I can't lose my family."

"So you chose them."

"I chose survival."

The line went dead.

I sat there holding the phone, finally understanding that purple had never meant maybe someday.

It had meant goodbye all along.

 

Moses Twizeyimana

Moses Twizeyimana is a geologist, author, and the founder of The Margin. He spends his days noticing what others walk past—the seams in rock, the weight of light, and the quiet between people. He writes to remember what it feels like to be alive, making room for the unsent letters and imperfect stories we often hide. His work has appeared in Africa Writer Magazine.