We never truly know when life will bring us to a crossroads we never chose, or lead us into a meeting with someone we never wished to see again. In the silence I had nurtured for years, that meeting arrived like a quietness that suddenly deafened.
It happened on a Tuesday, 2020. A day like any other, structured in its rhythm of emails, deadlines, and the muted hum of routine. I wasn’t looking for anything—no revelation, no catharsis, no disruption. That day was ordinary. A drizzle clung to the windows of the small café where I had taken shelter—from the weather, and from my own thoughts. I was reading an article on “encounter as an existential phenomenon”—something that sounded abstract but was actually deeply rooted in the most basic human experience: meeting and losing. The article said that every encounter carries the potential for change, however small. I silently nodded in agreement.
And then he came.
There were no signs from the universe, no dreams the night before, no premonitions of any kind. But he came, just as he used to: with hesitant steps, eyes searching for a seat, and a denim jacket rolled in his hand. Only this time, I was no longer the man waiting for him. I was merely a stranger who happened to be in the same café.
My eyes greeted him unintentionally. He recognized me in an instant, and his smile appeared like a memory forced to resurface. We sat across from each other, and the space between us was filled with all the things we once wanted to say but never did.
“You look well,” he said.
I nodded. “You too.”
Then we were silent. Not because there was nothing to say, but because we both knew: words would never be enough to explain what we once failed to resolve. In that silence, I recalled a quote from Emmanuel Levinas: that in the face of the other, we see an ethical demand that cannot be ignored. His face, with all the past embedded in it, looked at me not as a former lover, but as a human being who was once so close, as close as the eyes and the heart, as rhythmic as the pulse and the heartbeat.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. He chuckled softly, slightly nervous.
“I thought you had gone far away.”
“I did go far,” I replied. “But sometimes the farthest place is the one closest to us.”
He laughed again, this time more calmly. We began talking about ordinary things: work, weather, the music playing in the café. But beneath it all, there was a subtle yet powerful feeling: that we were saying our true goodbye, without naming it as such.
There is something about unexpected encounters that reveal the fragility of time. We imagine closure to be linear: something we complete, archive, and move on from. But time has its own logic, and memory often chooses its moments not based on convenience, but on emotional necessity. Seeing him again felt like a forgotten chapter forcing itself back into the book, demanding to be read.
This encounter, unplanned, unexpected, and perhaps never to be repeated became a kind of closure I didn’t realize I still needed. I thought I had healed. I thought I was done. But this meeting made me realize: healing is not always about forgetting, but about having the courage to look into the eyes of someone we once loved and no longer feel the same pain.
I realized that behind that unexpected meeting, there was a wound that was bleeding again, there was happiness that was replayed in memory and there were many feelings that asked for a part to be felt again but reality forced me to silence all of it because the love that used to be there was no longer where it should be.
When he finally said goodbye, I didn’t offer a number, there were no hugs, no promises to meet again. Only a smile, and a quiet peace slowly blooming in my chest. Perhaps the existentialist philosophers were right: the most meaningful encounters are those that make us more aware of our own being.
What remains with me is not his image, but the encounter itself. The chance meeting that reminded me of time’s quiet power, of memory’s defiance, and of the heart’s endless capacity for tenderness, even after silence.
An unexpected encounter is not always about rekindling. Sometimes, it is about acknowledging. And in that acknowledgment, there is a strange kind of peace, a soft letting go that does not require closure, only courage. Because sometimes, the most meaningful meetings are the ones that do not ask for anything, except to be felt.
No regrets, no saddnes. Just a long sigh as a sign that he is no longer here, in this heart…And that afternoon, beneath the drizzle that had yet to cease, I truly felt that I existed.