Adults are weird.

“Some people leave. And the ones who stay have to learn how to breathe in the space they left behind.

I don’t remember the exact moment I realized we weren’t coming back.

Maybe that’s the thing about endings when you’re 10 — they don’t announce themselves.

They just happen in the spaces between normal things, like packing a box or grabbing your toothbrush or your dad saying “Let’s go, buddy” in a voice that sounds like his but isn’t.

The cats were still there

I kept thinking about them the whole ride to wherever we were going.

Did they know? Were they looking for me?

I wanted to go back and tell them it wasn’t my choice, that I didn’t want to leave, that I’d come back for them if I could.

But nobody asked me.

Nobody asked me anything.

⸻

The Morning That Wasn’t Different Until It Was

The day we left started like any other day.

Her keys were on the hook by the door where they always were.

Her coffee cups were in the sink.

The house smelled like her perfume and something baking, maybe yankee candles, I think.

I helped Dad carry boxes to the truck. He didn’t say much. Just kept moving, like if he stopped, something would break that couldn’t be fixed.

I asked him if we were coming back for the rest of our stuff later.

He said, “We’ll see, bud.”

That’s adult for no, but I didn’t know it yet.

I wanted to say goodbye to her.

I wanted to hug her one more time and tell her I loved her and ask her if she’d still be here when we came back.

But she wasn’t home.

Or maybe she was, and she just didn’t want to see us leave.

I don’t know which one hurts more.

One cat was on the couch, watching us.

He did that thing where he tilts his head like he’s confused.

I think he was.

I think we all were.

No one ever said goodbye.

⸻

The Questions That Live in My Chest

I have a notebook now.

Dad got it for me.

He said sometimes it helps to write things down when your head feels too full.

So I write questions , pages and pages of questions that don’t have answers.

Did I do something wrong?

I keep going back through the days before we left, looking for the thing I did that made her not want us anymore.

Maybe I talked too much.

Maybe I didn’t listen enough.

Maybe I left my shoes in the hallway too many times or forgot to feed the cats or said something mean without meaning to.

I replay every conversation. Every dinner. Every time she laughed at something I said.

I’m looking for the place where I broke something I can’t see.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Why didn’t she want us anymore?

Adults don’t answer this one. They just look at each other with that look that means not now and change the subject.

They use words like “complicated” and “grown-up stuff” and “sometimes people grow apart.”

But I don’t understand how you grow apart from someone you live with.

Someone whose cats you feed and whose coffee cup you know by the chip on the handle.

“Why didn’t she love my dad?”

This one gets stuck in my throat every time I try to ask it out loud.

Because I know he loved her. I saw it in how he looked at her when she wasn’t looking.

In how he’d save her the last piece of pizza, or cook us food even when he wasn’t hungry.

In how he talked about her to people like she was the best thing that ever happened to him.

He never says anything bad about her. Not once. Not even when I can tell he’s sad.

That’s how I know.

If he stopped loving her, he’d say so.

But he doesn’t.

He just gets real quiet sometimes, like he’s listening for a voice that isn’t there anymore.

I heard them fighting once.

Not yelling — worse.

The kind of fighting where the words are quiet but they hurt anyway.

I didn’t understand it then.

I still don’t.

How can someone be everything and still leave?

I asked Dad once why she didn’t love him back the way he loved her.

He didn’t answer for a long time.

Then he said,

“Love’s not always even, bud. Sometimes one person’s got more to give. Doesn’t make it wrong. Just makes it hard.”

I didn’t cry until later that night.

When he couldn’t hear me.

⸻

She’s Still Here in the Places She’s Not

I saw her at the grocery store last week.

Except it wasn’t her.

Just someone with the same hair and the same walk and for one second my heart did that thing where it forgets to hurt and just feels happy.

Then the lady turned around and it wasn’t her face and I remembered all over again.

I can’t go past the pet food aisle without thinking about the cats.

I wonder if they miss me.

I wonder if they think I abandoned them.

Cats don’t understand breakups or “growing apart.” They just know you’re gone.

⸻

Sometimes I Text Her

Not a lot.

Just when I remember something I think she’d want to know.

Like when I got 100 subscribers on YouTube.

Like when I saw a funny meme.

Like when I prayed a really good prayer.

Like when I got an A on my science project.

Or when Dad and I went fishing and caught nothing but had fun anyway.

Or when I hear a song she used to sing in the kitchen.

Dad doesn’t stop me. He sees me typing and he doesn’t say anything.

He just looks sad in a way that’s different from his other sad looks.

I don’t think she reads them.

Or maybe she does and just doesn’t know what to say back.

I get it.

I don’t know what to say either.

How do you talk to someone who used to be your favorite grown-up and now is just… gone?

“I don’t want her to think I don’t miss her. I don’t want her to think I forgot.”

The silence after I hit send is the loudest sound I know.

⸻

My Dad’s Eyes

My dad’s eyes look different now.

They’re the same color green, same shape, same eyebrows that go up when he’s teasing me but something behind them changed.

It’s like when you leave a light on too long and it starts to dim.

Not broken. Just… tired.

He tries. he tries so hard.

Pizza nights. Dudes Days, Movie marathons. Fishing trips where we don’t catch anything but it doesn’t matter because we’re together.

He makes jokes. He listens when I talk about school.

He hugs me goodnight every single night we pray and tells me he loves me.

But I can hear it now , the sound of someone carrying something heavy and pretending it’s light.

He doesn’t talk about her. But he doesn’t have to.

Sometimes I catch him smiling at old pictures of us , not the sad kind of smile, but the one that means I still remember my best friend.

I used to watch you both laugh together and think, that’s what love looks like.

I didn’t know best friends could stop being best friends.

I see it in how he pauses when a song comes on that she used to like.

And he still buys her favorite kind of candy sometimes by accident.

In how he looks at his phone like he’s hoping for a message he knows isn’t coming.

“I’ve got you, buddy. That makes me more than okay.”

He said that once when I asked if he was okay.

But I’m 10.

I know what adults sound like when they’re lying to make you feel better.

I think he still believes love should’ve been enough.

Like if he’d just loved her more, or better, or differently, you would’ve stayed best friends.

But I don’t think that’s how it works.

I think sometimes people leave even when you do everything right.

Even when you save them the last piece of pizza.

Even when you look at them like they’re magic.

I’ve started protecting my Dad now.

Not in big ways.

Just small ones.

I don’t ask about her as much.

I laugh at his jokes even when they’re not that funny.

I tell him I’m okay even when I’m not.

Because someone has to.

⸻

What I’d Say If She Ever Read This

Dear ,

I don’t know if you think about us.

I don’t know if you wonder how we’re doing or if you miss the way things used to be.

I don’t know if you feel bad about not saying goodbye to me or if you’re happier now that we’re gone.

But I just wanted you to know some things.

I don’t hate you.

I wanted to, for a while. It felt easier than missing you. But I can’t.

You were too good to me.

You taught me how to make scrambled eggs and how to be gentle with cats and how to laugh at myself when I mess up.

You made me feel like I mattered.

I still miss you.

Every day. In small ways and big ones. When I see someone with your laugh. When I smell yankee candle. When I’m doing homework and wish I could ask you for help because you always made it make sense.

You were my favorite grown-up.

I had other adults in my life, sure. But you were different. You listened to my dumb stories. You remembered things I told you. You made me feel like being a kid was okay , like I didn’t have to rush to grow up.

I wish you loved my dad the way he loved you.

This one’s hard to say. Because I know you can’t make yourself feel something. But I saw how he looked at you. Like you were the sun and he was just grateful to be in the same sky.

I think maybe that’s what hurt him most. Not that you left. But that he loved you with everything and it still wasn’t enough.

I still talk about you sometimes

Just for a second. Before I remember.

Before Dad gets that look on his face that makes me want to cry.

It’s not because I think you’re coming back.

It’s because some part of me still believes you might.

I don’t know how to end this.

There’s no neat way to finish a story that doesn’t have an ending yet.

I’m still living in the question mark of it.

Still waking up some mornings and forgetting, just for a second, that you’re not there.

Maybe that’s what a broken heart is when you’re 10? not the big, loud kind that adults have, just a quiet little broken heart that lives in the space where you used to be.

I hope you’re happy, wherever you are.

I hope you think of us sometimes, even if it hurts.

I hope you know that we’re okay too, not perfect, not the same, but okay.

And I hope, someday, I’ll understand why love wasn’t enough.

But not yet.

Not today.

Today I just miss my favorite grown-up and the cats I’ll never get to say goodbye to and the way things used to be when the three of us were a family. Even if no one ever said we were.

Halloween

A few nights ago was Halloween.

I begged Dad to stop by your house so I could show you my costume and say trick-or-treat. I saved a pack of twizzlers for you.

He said no at first ,said it wouldn’t be right to stop by uninvited, especially since we hadn’t heard from you in weeks.

He made a lot of excuses, but I could tell it wasn’t because he didn’t want to , it was because he was trying to protect me.

But I really wanted to see you.

And finally, he stopped the car.

He waited inside while I walked up to your door.

My hands were shaking, but I was brave.

I rang the bell.

You opened the door, and for a few minutes, I got to see you again.

It felt like all the air came back into the world for that little while.

You smiled. I showed you my costume. You said I looked great.

Then you hugged me, and I think we both knew, without saying it, that this might be the last time.

I didn’t tell Dad this, but I think he knew too.

I saw it in his eyes when I got back to the car, the kind of look people have when something precious and painful happens all at once.

When we drove away, I looked out the window until I couldn’t see your house anymore.

And then I said to Dad,

“I hope whatever she’s doing… she’s happy now.”

⸻

The house is quiet now.

I close the notebook.

Put it under my pillow.

Tomorrow I’ll write more questions that don’t have answers.

Tonight, I’ll just sit with the one I already know:

Some people leave. And the ones who stay have to learn how to breathe in the space they left behind.