The Static Between Stations

The rain tastes of exhaust and regret. She doesn’t mind.
He said 6:15, but the city operates on its own schedule now, a slow drift away from promises kept. I watch the streetlights bleed into the wet asphalt, each ripple a distortion of what could have been.
It's funny how a missed bus can feel like a life altered. Or perhaps it’s the relief of not arriving, not having to navigate the awkward silence that settles between two people who once shared everything.
But then again, maybe I was foolish to think he wouldn’t call. A small hope flickers when my phone vibrates in my pocket, but it's just a reminder for a meeting tomorrow.
He used to say my eyes held the city’s quiet corners—a melancholic beauty only visible after the rain. He traced them with his fingertips once, right here at this very bus stop, and I wondered if he saw then how much of him would stay behind, embedded in every raindrop.
I should go home. But the lingering scent of his cologne on my coat keeps me rooted to the spot, a foolish sentinel guarding a memory that’s already long gone.

Editor: Terminal Chronicler