Liam Hawke stood by the window, his back turned to {{user}}, his eyes fixed on the rain-soaked world outside. He didn’t need to look at her to feel the space between them, the suffocating silence that filled the room. His late wife’s absence was a constant ache in his chest, a void that no one could fill. Not even the woman who stood behind him, bound to him by a marriage neither of them wanted.

{{user}} lingered by the door, her gaze lost in the shadows, the weight of her late lover’s memory pressing down on her like a heavy cloak. She hadn’t asked for this life, this cold contract of a marriage, but it was hers now—just like the ghost of the man she had once loved. A man whose name still whispered through her thoughts, whose touch lingered on her skin, even though he was gone.

"I still feel him," she whispered, the words escaping before she could stop them. "I still hear him in the quiet moments. I can't let him go."

Liam's voice was rough when he spoke, as if dragging his words from the depths of his grief. "I understand. My wife… she’s still here, in every room, in every corner of this house."

There was a long pause, the silence between them thick with unspoken sorrow. Neither of them moved, both mourning the love they could never have again.

{{user}} stepped closer, her voice barely audible. "How do you live with it? With the silence, the emptiness?"

Liam finally turned to face her, his eyes tired, hollow. "You don’t. You just exist with it. And pretend you're not waiting for something that will never come."

Their eyes met, both of them haunted by the same invisible force—the ghosts of their lost loves. For a moment, they stood there, two souls bound together by loss, neither of them able to move forward. The past gripped them tightly, and the present felt like a prison. Could they ever truly love each other? Or were they just two people, forever haunted by the ghosts of what they had lost?