The dawn was gray. A wet, wool gray. The cab sat by the curb. Engine off. Kenji inside. The silence was a living thing now. A companion.
He had the two photo halves on the dash. His and hers. Side by side. Not together. Just adjacent.
He looked at them. The kids. The blue. The promise.
He didn't feel sad. Didn't feel angry. Felt nothing. A clean, hollow nothing. Like a wound finally scabbed over. No more sting. Just the scar.
He picked up her half. The one with her face. Her smile. He held it between his fingers. He could tear it. Finish the job. Reduce it to confetti. Let it mix with the old fries on the floor.
He didn't.
He pulled a blank envelope from his glove box. A gas receipt. He slipped her photo half inside. Licked the seal. It tasted like glue and dust.
He didn't write a note. No words left. The photo was the note. The whole story. The beginning, the middle, the end.
He wrote her name on the front. Her firm's address. He remembered it. It was burned in now.
He got out of the cab. The air was cold and clean. Washed by the rain. It smelled like wet pavement. Like morning. A new smell.
He walked to the corner. To the red mailbox. A relic. He lifted the metal mouth. Dropped the envelope in. It made no sound.
He walked back to the cab. Got in. Didn't look at the mailbox. Didn't look back.
He started the engine. The radio was off. The silence was his.
He drove. Not to the bridge. Just drove. The city woke up around him. Lights came on in windows. People walked dogs. A woman jogged. Life. Ordinary, unremarkable life.
He didn't think about her. Not the woman. Not the girl. He thought about the flavor. The mint. The tobacco. The chemical mix of then. It was just a taste now. A fact. Like the taste of coffee. Or rain.
He was a cab driver. He would drive his cab. He would go home to the room above the noodle shop. He would smell pork broth. He would sleep. He would wake up. He would do it again.
She was a lawyer. She would go back to her firm. To her fiancé. To her view. She would make decisions. She would breathe air that smelled like lemons. She would live.
They were sentences. Two separate, complete sentences. No conjunction. Just a period.
He stopped at a light. Watched the crosswalk count down. 10… 9… 8…
A memory flashed. Not painful. Just there. Her laugh on the roof. The snort. Idiot. The blue of her sweater. The weight of her head on his shoulder. A perfect, frozen second. A museum piece.
It didn't hurt. It was just beautiful. A beautiful thing that happened once. To two other people.
The light turned green.
He drove.
The sentence wasn't a punishment. It was a fact. A declaration.
You will always be my first love.
That was the first clause. The truth. The foundation everything was built on. The reason for the ghost. The reason for the search. The reason for the quiet room. It was unchanging. A rock in the river of time.
But finally, you are my last.
The second clause. The release. The period. Not "my only." Not "my forever." My last. The final one. The one that ends the story. The love that closes the door. So no other ghost can get in. No other memory can claim that title. It was over. The haunting was complete. The ghost was laid to rest. Not by hate. By love. By finally, fully, loving it enough to let it be finished.
He was free. Not from the memory. From the want. From the need for the memory to be more than it was.
He pulled over. Outside his building. The noodle shop sign flickered. A buzzing neon bug.
He sat for a moment. In the quiet cab. The sentence echoed in the hollow space.
It was okay.
He got out. Locked the door. He didn't look at the sky. Didn't look for a blue rooftop that wasn't there.
He just walked inside. To the smell of broth. To the small, real life that was his.
The sentence was served. The time was done.
He was just a man now. Not a ghost. Not a prisoner.
Just a man.
With a memory.
And a tomorrow that had no flavor at all.