What If I Stayed - Part Three: What You Never Said

Some things are easier to leave unsaid. Others come back to haunt you until they’re finally spoken. In Part Three of Eli and Caleb’s story, the silence between them cracks open just enough to let the past slip through—and neither of them is ready for what it brings with it.

It’s not just a question of what was lost. It’s a question of what still remains.

Part Three: What You Never Said

The words they never said might be the only thing that can save them now.

Caleb

I heard him before I saw him.

The soft creak of the floorboard near the window. The one that always gave him away no matter how quietly he tried to move. It pulled me from sleep, but I didn’t open my eyes. Just lay there, motionless, heart pounding like it knew something I didn’t.

Then I heard it. His voice, low and rough, barely more than a breath.

“If I’d stayed…”

That was it. The sentence stopped there. But everything he didn’t say? I felt it settle in my chest like smoke. Thick and clinging and impossible to ignore.

I sat up slowly, the worn edge of the blanket slipping down my chest. My feet hit the floor with a quiet thud, and I rubbed the sleep from my face as I padded toward the hall. I didn’t even think about it. Just followed the sound of his voice like some half-awake part of me had been waiting to hear it.

He was standing in front of the shelf by the door, his back to me, still gripping the same picture frame he never used to notice. The one my sister took on the porch that summer. His fingers were tight around it, like maybe it was holding him together.

I didn’t say anything.

Didn’t need to.

The air between us had already shifted.

He didn’t turn around, but I knew he could feel me there.

And maybe that was the part that wrecked me the most.

That after everything, the space between us still felt like it mattered.

I took a breath and held it.

I wanted to say his name.

To let it leave my mouth the way it used to, soft and sure and so damn full of hope.

But the words didn’t come.

Instead, I stood there with every unspoken thing I’ve been carrying since the moment he walked out. Words I’ve never said to anyone else. Words that stuck like splinters every time I tried to move on.

You broke me.

That’s what I wanted to say.

Not to hurt him. Not to make him feel guilty.

Just so he’d know that he mattered. That he still does.

Because when he left, he didn’t just take his things.

He took the version of me that only existed when he was here.

And I’ve been clawing my way back ever since.

I wanted to tell him that I hated him for leaving. That I hated myself more for still hoping he’d come back.

That I tried to move on. Really, I did.

But every smile since has felt a little hollow.

Every bed colder.

Every conversation just a little bit quieter.

I almost say it.

Almost close the distance between us and say the one thing that still burns behind my ribs:

I never stopped loving you.

But I don’t.

Because love isn’t always enough.

And sometimes the confessions that matter most are the ones that never make it out loud.

So instead, I stay in the silence.

Let it stretch.

Let it say everything I don’t know how to.

And when he finally turns his head, just slightly, like he’s waiting for me to break it—

I take one small step forward.

Not a leap. Not a demand.

Just a step.

And I let it speak for me.

The morning he left, I knew something was off the second I walked into the kitchen.

He was already dressed. Coffee mug in one hand, eyes fixed on the sink like it held the answers he hadn’t found yet. I looked past him and saw the bag. Half-zipped. Tucked just behind the door like he hoped I wouldn’t notice it.

I did.

“Going somewhere?” I asked, even though I already knew.

He didn’t answer right away. Just scrubbed the mug with a little too much force. That silence, it wasn’t empty. It was heavy. Tense. The kind that always came before a storm.

“I got offered a job,” he finally said. “In Atlanta.”

It didn’t feel real, not at first.

Not until he shrugged.

Not until I saw the way his hands trembled when he set the mug down.

“You weren’t gonna tell me?” I asked, already feeling the crack form. The one I knew would split everything wide open.

He said he didn’t think I’d care.

And that was the part that gutted me.

Because I did. Of course I did.

I loved him. God, I loved him.

And he was standing there acting like I wouldn’t fight for him if he gave me the chance.

“You really believe that?” I asked.

He wouldn’t look at me.

Which told me more than anything he might’ve said.

I tried to reason with him. Offered the kind of logic you only fall back on when you’re desperate. “We could figure it out. You didn’t have to do this alone.”

“I wanted to do it alone,” he snapped.

And that’s when I stopped. Really stopped.

Because I saw it then, the wall. The one I’d been pretending wasn’t there between us. Maybe it had been for a while. Maybe I’d just been too hopeful to see it.

So I asked for the truth.

And he didn’t give it.

He just stood there, quiet and closed-off, and let the silence say what he wouldn’t.

I should’ve begged.

Should’ve pulled him back.

But I was tired of being the only one trying.

“If you walk out now,” I said, “don’t come back.”

I didn’t mean it. Not really.

But I needed him to hear it.

He hesitated. For half a second, I thought he might stay.

Then he picked up the bag. Walked out without another word.

I stood there for a long time after the door closed. Not moving. Not breathing. Just staring at the place where he’d been like if I waited long enough, the air might give him back.

When I finally did move, I went to grab the mug he’d left behind—and that’s when I saw it.

His hoodie.

Folded on the back of the couch, half-tucked beneath the blanket we used to fight over. I don’t think he meant to leave it. But I took it anyway. Buried it at the bottom of my drawer like a wound I couldn’t stop touching.

Some nights, I held it like it might still smell like him. Like the weight of it could anchor me to something real.

Once, months after he left, I called his number. Didn’t expect him to answer.

He didn’t.

But his voicemail did.

And for thirty seconds, I just… listened.

To the voice I’d spent every day trying not to miss.

I almost said something. Almost asked if he was okay, if he ever thought about me, if I was stupid for still leaving a light on that he never promised to follow home.

But I couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t make the words come out.

So I hung up.

Deleted the call.

And told myself it didn’t mean anything.

But it did.

He’s standing in the hallway like a ghost. Still gripping that damn picture frame like it holds the answers we never found.

I should say something.

Anything.

But the words lodge somewhere in my throat, trapped behind everything I never got to tell him.

He looks older. Tired in a way I recognize. Not just from the years that passed but from whatever haunted him long before he ever left.

I shift my weight, the old floorboard creaking again under my heel. His head turns toward the sound, eyes locking on mine like he’s not sure I’m real.

Neither of us speaks.

Not at first.

His jaw tightens. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Not yet. He’s still gripping the frame like it might splinter, and something about the way he’s looking at it, at me, makes it impossible to speak.

“How long have you been up?” I finally ask, even though I already know the answer.

“A while,” he says, clearing his throat. “Couldn’t sleep.”

I nod once, the motion slow. Measured. Still unsure how close I can get without tipping us into something too raw to handle.

“You always were good at running from rest,” I say.

It’s not meant to hurt. Not really. But I see it land. He sets the frame down gently this time, like he understands how fragile everything is.

For a second, I think about walking away. About turning around and pretending I didn’t hear the words he whispered into the silence before I stepped out of the shadows.

But I don’t.

Instead, I ask, “You meant it, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t pretend not to understand. Doesn’t look away.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I did.”

And fuck, it hits harder than I thought it would.

I nod again, slower this time. Something flickers in my chest. I don’t know if it’s anger or grief or something softer trying to survive beneath the weight of all the shit we didn’t say.

I don’t let it out.

“Get some sleep, Eli,” I say, voice barely steady.

Then I turn and walk back down the hall.

Because I need the space. Because I’m not sure what I’ll do if I stay.

Because if I don’t leave now, I might not be able to walk away again.

I don’t go back to bed right away.

I make it to the doorway, my hand is on the frame, but my feet won’t move. Not yet. Not with his voice still echoing in my chest. The way he said “yeah, I did,” like it hurt. Like he meant every syllable and still didn’t think it was enough.

God, I hated that he made me believe again.

Even for a second.

I turn, just slightly, enough to catch a glimpse of him in the hallway mirror, still standing where I left him. Still clutching the past like he’s afraid it’ll vanish if he breathes too hard.

He doesn’t know I see it too.

The pull.

The ache.

The gravity of a thousand unsaid things pressing in until it’s hard to remember who walked away from whom.

I should be over it. Should be able to look at him and feel nothing but distance. But seeing him here, in this house, saying the things I wanted to beg him to say?

It scrapes something raw.

Because the truth is, I never stopped waiting for him to come back.

I just stopped saying it out loud.

And now that he’s here, I don’t know what to do with the hope clawing its way up through the grief.

To be Continued. Come back tomorrow for part four

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: September 2025

Cover Design by LS Phoenix