“What Are You Doing Now?”
Aria (you) moved to the city with hope. Her new studio apartment was small — quiet, the walls still bare — but it felt like a fresh start after years of drifting. She told herself it was enough. A new job, a new skyline, a new version of herself.
One evening, she wandered into a small neighborhood venue for a local show, just to feel less alone for a while. The lights were warm and golden, the air humming with laughter — and that’s when she saw him. Matt.
He was leaning against the bar beneath the exit sign, talking to friends, his smile soft and effortless. His hair caught the light, and for a reason she couldn’t name, that moment stayed with her long after she left.
Over the next few weeks, Aria couldn’t stop thinking about him. She tried to move on, to meet people, to stay busy. She went on dates, scrolled through apps, tried to convince herself she was fine — but no one made her feel the way he did in that fleeting glance.
Every so often, she’d catch herself wondering if he remembered her too.
Then, one rainy afternoon, she walked into a coffee shop — and there he was. Sitting by the window, sketching in a notebook, a cup of coffee cooling beside him.
Their eyes met, both surprised, both smiling. “Hey,” she said. “Hey,” he replied. He gestured to the seat across from him. “You can sit, if you want.”
They talked for hours — about Tv shows, favorite albums, the kind of place they’d want to live in someday. He joked about painting their apartment walls together, and she laughed, feeling warmth rise in her chest. It felt easy. It felt like home.
From then on, they were inseparable. They walked the city streets late into the night, music echoing softly from passing cars, trading stories about everything and nothing. Matt had this way of listening — like every word mattered.
Aria started to imagine a life with him. Sunday mornings, shared coffee cups, walls covered in colors they chose together.
Sometimes she’d hum along to a song and he’d smile like he already knew what she was thinking.
“You said that by now we’d paint the walls of our shared apartment.” Those words played in her mind like a promise.
Then life, as it always does, shifted. Matt got offered a job in another city — one he’d dreamed about for years. Aria was proud of him, she really was. But pride doesn’t quiet the ache of goodbye.
They promised to make it work. At first, they did. Late-night calls, handwritten letters, quick visits between deadlines. But slowly, the space between messages grew. The calls got shorter.
Soon, all she had left was one of his old t-shirts — soft and faded, smelling faintly of paint and cedar. Sometimes she’d wear it just to remember how it felt to be his favorite person.
“Are you with somebody? Should I even care? Know you’re not as happy as when I was there…”
The lyrics echoed in her chest.
One night, after weeks of silence, she opened her phone and hovered over his name. Her heart raced.
She typed:
“Hey, how are you? WYD now?”
She didn’t send it. What could she really say? That she still missed him? That some nights, she still dreamed about the life they almost had?
Instead, she whispered the words to the empty room, like a prayer that maybe, somehow, he’d feel them.
Aria didn’t want to be twenty-something and still stuck in her head about seventeen — about that version of herself who believed love could last forever. But part of her wasn’t ready to let go.
Finally, she wrote another message.
“I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re doing well. I’ll always remember us.”
She hit send. And with that, she let him go — not completely, but enough.
Still, sometimes, when she looked at blank walls, she imagined the colors they’d chosen. And maybe, just maybe, one day when he asked, “What are you doing now?”