can you hear me now?

by Jessica Edmond

He said it on our second date, over soup that tasted like something had been boiled too long.

I can hear you thinking, he said, smiling like this was a gift.

I assumed he meant I was expressive. That my face betrayed me. People had said that before. So I laughed and said, That’s unfortunate for you.

But later, while we were walking, he stopped suddenly and asked why I always rehearsed arguments I wasn’t planning to have.

I said, I don’t.

You just did, he said. Three versions. You won the third one.

After that, it became a habit of his to answer questions I hadn’t asked out loud. To interrupt silences I was still inside of. He would finish my sentences before I had decided what they were for.

You’re tired of being the reasonable one, he told me once, as I brushed my teeth.

You’re still angry about that thing from before you met me.

You don’t mean it when you say you’re fine.

I began thinking smaller thoughts. I tried to keep them folded, quiet, tucked behind safer ones. But he always found them, like loose change in a couch.

Don’t worry, he said. I only listen because I care.

The night I realized I had to leave him, we were lying in bed, lights off, the room full of breathing. I was thinking about nothing in particular. Just the soft relief of not being needed for a moment.

You’re drifting, he said.

I didn’t answer.

Say something, he said. I can’t hear you anymore.

In the morning, I packed while he slept. On the kitchen table, I left a note. I didn’t write what I was feeling. I didn’t explain. I didn’t justify.

I just wrote my name.

Later, he texted to ask what it meant.

I didn’t respond.

Some things, once kept to yourself, learn how to stay that way.

Photo of Jessica Edmond

BIO: Jessica Edmond is a writer working across poetry, flash fiction, and hybrid forms. Her work has appeared in Four Tulips and NimblewitLit, with forthcoming publications in Black Is Magazine and SHINE Poetry Quarterly. She is drawn to restraint, voice, and the blurred edges between love, power, and harm. She lives in the Midwest and shares work and reflections on writing on Instagram at @MischiefandRigor and on Bluesky at @genesis-pearl.