A Knock from the Past

She never sent a message. She never called. She never wrote a word that could be kept, saved, or replayed.

Instead, she knocked in quieter ways—by showing up online every few years, her name suddenly glowing where I least expected it. No greeting, no conversation, just her presence slipping into my orbit long enough to remind me she still existed.

And then she would vanish again.

Back in school, she was never loud, never the center of attention, but there was something about her—an unspoken gravity that lingered. I didn’t realize then how easily she would take root in memory. Even now, years later, her sudden appearances feel like echoes from those hallways, from glances that meant too much and words that never came.

For the longest time, I resisted.
Each time she surfaced online, I turned away. I told myself it was nothing, that acknowledging her presence would only invite unnecessary drama. I convinced myself it was safer to let the past stay buried.

But this time was different.
This time, I let the door open. I thought—perhaps I am finally mature enough. Perhaps I can give her what she has been reaching for all these years: closure. Or maybe, in truth, I was the one searching for it.

And in that moment, it felt strangely natural. There was awkwardness, yes, but it dissolved almost immediately, replaced with a quiet familiarity that startled me. As if no years had passed at all. As if we had only stepped out of one classroom and into another.

Yet, before the air could settle, she disappeared again. Quietly. Without explanation.

And suddenly, I was the one left hanging.
The closure I thought I was offering her became the absence I carried instead.

Now I am left with questions that circle endlessly in my head.
Is she fighting her own demons? If so, perhaps it is better this way—for both of us.
Or… perhaps it was never about me at all.

All I know is this: some people never truly leave. They linger, not in conversations, not in presence, but in the silence between. Their knocks are soft, almost invisible, yet they echo louder than the voices of those who stay.

And sometimes, the hardest part is not the unanswered knock—it is the haunting quiet that follows.