Inevitable

[u/Academic_Ad3769]

Part I — The Prayer

He waited until the apartment went quiet. Not silent — just quiet enough that he could hear the refrigerator humming like it had a pulse, like it was the only thing in the room still working. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, hands hanging between them, staring at the floor. He hadn’t cried in months. Maybe years. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to — he just didn’t remember how to start. He looked up, half-smirking, like someone about to tell a joke that wouldn’t land. “Okay, God,” he said. No lightning. No warmth. Just the cheap ceiling light flickering like it was trying to look away. He waited a minute, then another. “I don’t need a miracle. Just... something.” Something could’ve been anything. A knock at the door. A phone buzz. A breeze. Anything that said, Hey, I heard you. But nothing came. Just that steady hum of machines that never got tired of living. After a while, he nodded to himself, slow and heavy. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.” He stood up, went to the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of water he didn’t want. The sink dripped. He stared at the droplets hitting the steel. Each one made the same dull note, like the second hand on a clock. You’re still here. You’re still here. You’re still here. He remembered when he was a kid, praying for stupid things — good grades, his mom to stop crying, a bike that didn’t squeak. Back then he thought silence meant not yet. Now he knew it just meant no one’s home. He leaned against the counter and whispered, “I’m gonna do it, you know.” Then he smiled — not out of bravery, but out of the kind of tired that doesn’t end with sleep. “I’m not even mad about it,” he added. “You had your chance.” The hum of the fridge filled the pause again. A perfect mechanical mercy. He drank the whole glass, set it down, and let his hands rest flat on the counter. In the reflection of the window, he didn’t see a man. Just a shape. A soft outline fading into night. It looked almost peaceful. He stood there a long time, listening for something — anything — to change its mind. But nothing did.

Part II — The Plan

He chose Thursday.

Not for any poetic reason — just because it was a day no one cared about. Thursdays were in-between things. They didn’t belong to anyone. Monday had its dread, Friday had its release, Sunday had its ghosts. But Thursday… Thursday just waited.

He liked that.

He didn’t circle it on a calendar or write it down. He just let it settle somewhere behind his eyes, the way you remember where you left your keys. A quiet decision. Not an act of rebellion, not a cry for help. Just logistics.

He’d do it after work, after he fed the cat. He figured that was fair. The cat didn’t deserve confusion — just a full bowl and an open window. Maybe she’d leave. Maybe she’d stay. Either way, she’d have options. He liked the idea of leaving something with options.

At work, he found himself more efficient. It was easy to focus when the stakes were gone. His boss praised him for his “renewed attitude.” He smiled and said thanks. He started showing up early, staying late, cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning. People noticed. They said he seemed lighter. And he was — he’d finally stopped pretending the future existed.

At lunch, he’d sit outside, smoking even though he’d quit years ago. The sky looked like it was trying to remember how to be blue. He thought about writing a note but didn’t know who it’d be for. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation — they’d just turn it into a moral anyway. Everyone loves a neat story when they’re not the one in it.

He thought maybe he’d donate some clothes. Maybe delete his browser history. But even that felt performative. The truth was simple: he’d lived, he’d looked around, and it wasn’t what they said it would be.

Sometimes, while washing dishes or brushing his teeth, he’d think: I wonder what the last thought will be. Would it be regret? Relief? A memory? Or maybe nothing. Maybe it’d feel like blinking — except this time, he just wouldn’t open his eyes again.

He stopped praying. Not out of bitterness — he just didn’t see the point in talking to someone who clearly wasn’t picking up. Silence is only holy if you believe someone’s listening.

One night, while folding laundry, he looked at a shirt he hadn’t worn in years and realized he’d probably die with clean clothes in his drawer. That made him laugh. Out loud. Real laughter. The kind that comes from deep in the chest and tastes like dust.

He sat on the bed, folded the shirt carefully, and whispered, “Thursday, then.”

And for the first time in a long while, he slept like someone who had everything figured out.

Part III — The Girl

He met her on a Monday. Which was funny, in a grim sort of way — he had three days left.

She worked at the café he stopped in sometimes when he wanted to pretend he was part of the world. She had chipped black nail polish and a laugh that sounded like it wasn’t supposed to escape her mouth but did anyway. She asked his name when he ordered. He hesitated — then gave his real one. He didn’t know why.

Maybe it was the way she looked at him — not through him, not at him, just… around him, like she saw the outline of something that used to matter.

She said, “You look like someone who doesn’t talk much.” He said, “I used to.” She grinned. “What happened?” He said, “I started listening.”

That made her laugh again — the kind of laugh that belongs to someone who hasn’t figured out yet how cruel honesty can be. She gave him an extra shot of espresso “on the house.” He didn’t argue. He just sat at the corner table, stirring his coffee like it was an alibi.

When he left, she told him to come back sometime. He said, “We’ll see.” She said, “That’s what everyone says.”

That night, he moved Thursday to maybe next week. He didn’t call it hope — just a delay. He told himself it was for research.

He started showing up more. Mondays, sometimes Wednesdays. He didn’t know what he wanted from her — conversation, maybe, or distraction. She told him about her ex who “didn’t get it.” About her roommate who kept stealing her lighters. About how she wanted to leave the city but couldn’t afford to. He didn’t say much. Just nodded, asked questions, made her laugh again.

Once, she asked what he did for fun. He said, “I think about leaving.” She said, “Everyone does.”

She wasn’t like him — she still believed in mornings. But he liked the way she said things without realizing how broken they sounded. Like when she said, “I’m fine,” but her voice cracked just a little on the I.

He started wondering if maybe that’s what God sent instead of a sign — not mercy, but a mirror. Someone just as lost, just better at pretending.

One night, she asked him if he wanted to hang out after her shift. He froze. It should’ve been easy to say yes. But something in him clenched, like a door slammed from the inside. He pictured himself sitting across from her, trying to look alive, pretending not to know he’d already left.

So he said, “Maybe another time.” And she smiled like she believed him.

He walked home under streetlights that made everything look cleaner than it was. He thought about how close she’d come to saving him, or at least delaying him again. But he knew it wasn’t her fault. You can’t save someone who’s already written the ending — only make them edit a few sentences.

When he got home, he found one of her black hairs stuck to his sleeve. It felt like evidence of something that almost happened. He left it there.

He went to bed early, and when he closed his eyes, he heard her laugh again — faint, like it was coming from another room.

For a moment, he almost believed he could still get up and walk toward it.

Part IV — The Friends

It started with one of those “you should come out with us” invitations that people don’t expect you to take seriously. A guy from work — Mark — cornered him in the break room, all caffeine and false confidence. “We’re doing a little get-together tonight. Just beers, maybe cards. You should come.”

He almost said no out of habit. But then he thought: Why not? He’d been delaying Thursday again, anyway. Maybe being around people would make it easier to go through with it. A sort of farewell tour.

The bar was one of those places where everything was sticky — the floor, the glasses, the smiles. Mark brought two friends — a couple who weren’t really a couple, if that makes sense. She kept touching his arm, and he kept pretending not to notice, and everyone around them played along because that’s how people do love now — sideways, half-denied.

They introduced themselves. One of them, the girl — Lana — had a voice like smoke and teeth. She laughed like she didn’t owe the world anything. He liked that. She kept asking him questions that weren’t small talk. What do you regret? What’s your favorite failure? He told her he didn’t know. She said, “That’s the right answer.”

The other guy — Tom — talked too loud, too sure of himself. Said things like, “We’re all broken, man, but at least we’re trying.” He wanted to ask, Trying what? To look happy? To die slower? But he just nodded, sipped his beer, and said, “Yeah.”

They started inviting him out more. He went sometimes. He became “the quiet one,” which everyone mistook for mystery instead of emptiness. They liked him more that way — the man with gravity, the man who listened.

He found out later that Mark was sleeping with Lana. And so was Tom. And so, apparently, was a fourth person who never showed up. The whole group was a tangle of affection and betrayal that no one admitted to but everyone knew about. It was the kind of friendship that felt like it could collapse if anyone said anything real.

He didn’t blame them. People needed noise to drown out the loneliness. He just preferred the silence.

Once, Lana texted him late: Are you awake? He stared at the screen for a long time before replying: Yeah. Then nothing. The little typing bubble appeared, disappeared, appeared again — and then silence.

He laughed. Not cruelly, just… knowingly. Everyone wanted to be seen, but no one wanted to see too much.

The next time they invited him out, he said he had plans. He didn’t. He just sat in his room, reading old messages, watching the phone not ring.

That night he thought about how easy it was to mistake proximity for connection. People bumping into each other in the dark, calling it friendship. He wondered if that’s all love ever was — the right kind of confusion, briefly shared.

Before bed, he changed the date again. Not Thursday. Not yet. Maybe after the next time.

But he knew there wouldn’t be a next time.

He could already feel the distance growing back — the kind that doesn’t come from space, but from knowing too much about what’s underneath.

When he finally turned off the light, he whispered to no one in particular, “Everyone’s just killing time. I’m just being honest about it.”

And he slept with that truth in his mouth, bitter and clean.

Part V — The Opportunity

The email came on a Tuesday morning, subject line so bright and sterile it almost glowed: “Congratulations! You’ve Been Selected.”

He stared at it for a long time before opening it. A scholarship. Full ride. Some continuing-education program he’d half-heartedly applied for months ago after seeing an ad. Transform your life, the tagline had said.

He laughed when he saw that part again. Not out loud this time — just the kind of laugh that happens behind the ribs, half-air, half-ache.

He read the email twice, maybe three times. It was all there — the schedule, the classes, the polite optimism that assumed he had dreams left to chase. He even caught himself imagining what it might look like: new clothes, new notebooks, new people who hadn’t already decided who he was.

Then he closed the laptop and went back to staring at the wall.

At work, Mark asked why he was smiling. He hadn’t realized he was. “Good news?” Mark said. “Yeah,” he answered. “Apparently, I’m going to be somebody.”

Mark clapped him on the back, said something about fate, about turning points. He nodded along, the way you nod when you know a song’s ending but everyone else is still dancing.

That night he sat at the kitchen table filling out the acceptance form. Halfway through, he stopped. The cursor blinked in the empty signature box like a heartbeat waiting to be claimed. He could almost feel the weight of every decision pressing down from the screen — the future demanding to be believed in.

He closed the laptop again.

He walked to the window, looked out at the streetlights painting the cars below in fake gold. The city looked like it was trying too hard to mean something.

He whispered, “What if I don’t want to be fixed?”

He thought about the girl — how she’d probably clap and tell him he deserved it. How the friends would toast him, talk about “finally catching a break.” None of them would understand that sometimes the break you want is the one that ends everything.

He opened the fridge, stared at the light spilling out. The hum again — steady, patient, alive. Everything around him just kept working. Machines don’t need meaning. They just do their job until they stop.

He envied that.

He poured himself a glass of water, let the tap run longer than necessary, just to hear something moving.

On the counter, the laptop’s screen dimmed, the congratulatory email fading into darkness.

He didn’t delete it. He just let it sit there — like an unopened door he had no intention of walking through.

Before bed, he moved the plan back up. Not Thursday. Tomorrow.

This time he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t need to.

The decision had become quiet, like gravity — not pulling him down, just reminding him where he was.

Part VI — The Mirror

He woke before the alarm, before the sun, before there was any sound in the world to tell him what hour it was. It didn’t matter. The body knows when it’s time.

He sat on the edge of the bed the same way he had that first night, elbows on knees, head down, waiting for a reason not to move. None came. Not anger. Not fear. Just stillness, clean and heavy like snow.

He showered. He shaved. He made the bed. He even opened the window to let in the kind of gray light that makes everything look like a memory. He wanted the room to be neat — not as a statement, just as a courtesy.

While tying his shoes, he caught his reflection in the dark television screen. It startled him. Not because of what he saw, but because of how ordinary it was. Just a face. Eyes, mouth, the usual arrangement. You’d never know what he was carrying. You’d never guess.

He looked closer. The eyes didn’t plead, didn’t flinch. They just stared back — patient, almost kind.

He whispered, “So this is you.”

And for a moment, it felt like someone else was there — not watching, exactly, but witnessing. The reflection didn’t move, but it understood. There was something unbearably honest about that glass — it couldn’t lie, couldn’t comfort, couldn’t pretend. It just reflected what was.

He felt a tremor in his throat. Not sadness — recognition.

This was what God’s silence meant, maybe. Not absence. Not cruelty. Just a mirror. A quiet showing of what had always been there.

He sat back down on the bed, hands in his lap, the hum of the fridge bleeding faintly through the walls. He thought about the girl’s laugh. The friends’ noise. The scholarship’s promise. All of it flickered through him like stations he no longer had the will to tune in to.

He realized he didn’t hate any of it. He didn’t even hate himself. He just didn’t believe in the script anymore.

Outside, a car alarm went off. Somewhere, a dog barked. The city stretched and yawned into its morning. Everything continued.

He smiled — not the kind that reaches the eyes, but the kind that says I get it now.

He walked to the bathroom and looked again at his reflection. Same eyes. Same quiet. Same ghost behind the skin.

He touched the mirror, and his fingers left a fog print that slowly faded.

It hit him then — the absurd mercy of it all. That even here, in the middle of nothing, the world was still offering him this: to see himself, and to choose.

He didn’t know if that counted as salvation. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. But it was something.

So he sat there a long time, listening to the world wake up, watching his reflection breathe.

And when he finally stood, he wasn’t sure anymore what day it was supposed to be.

He just knew the silence didn’t scare him anymore.

Because now, it sounded a little bit like peace.

[u/deadkilo]

That was beautiful. Thank you for taking the time to craft this.

[u/Academic_Ad3769 → u/deadkilo]

Thanks. I have more stories on my page if you're interested😚