The words we choose to utter have a curious way of defining us. But sometimes all they turn out to be are fillers for the silence between two people, or one person and five others, or ten people and everyone else. Me against you, you against them, them against the rest of the world.

I remember the last time you filled out the dead air between us. It was a heavy throbbing silence that threatened to fuse us together instead of blowing us miles apart. What if you hadn’t averted my gaze and looked at my hands while uttering the words that you did. What if I had anticipated them and made a preemptive move instead? Or what if we had let ourselves get enveloped in the mystery of the silence as it lulled us into submission, prematurely burying another round of fillers? So many what ifs when there’s only one answer. And that’s the one I’ll never hear.