Farid? Cindy?

The stranger on Farid’s screen had Cindy’s face.

For one full second, he did not understand it as reality. The mind, when ambushed by memory, had strange manners. It did not scream first. It arranged the impossible into more acceptable shapes. A girl who looked like Cindy. A poor connection. A trick of the laptop camera. A face assembled from exhaustion and blue light and all the things he had trained himself not to look for.

But then she blinked.

Not beautifully. Not cinematically. Just blinked, slow and startled, the way a person did when the world suddenly placed a ghost in front of her and expected her to keep breathing.

Farid’s hand stayed frozen on the trackpad. The cursor hovered over the button that would send her away. Next. Such a small word. Such a merciful word. He had pressed it on strangers all night without thinking. A boy in a hoodie eating instant noodles. A woman in a dorm room with fairy lights. Two teenagers daring each other to sing. A black screen breathing through a microphone. Next, next, next, until people became weather passing across glass.

Now the button waited beneath his finger like a door handle.

He did not press it.

The room around him felt suddenly too visible. The stack of work papers near his mug. The half-open wardrobe. The prayer mat folded on the chair because he had been too tired to put it away properly. Behind him, Momo slept in a heavy orange curve on the edge of the sofa, one paw hanging down as if he owned the world and all its furniture. The sofa had a new grey cover now. Beneath it, Farid knew, were the old scratch marks Cindy used to laugh at.

On the screen, Cindy sat very still.

Her hair was longer than the last time he had seen her. Or maybe he had simply forgotten how it fell when she was tired. The lamp behind her made a soft halo on the wall, but her face was lit mostly by the laptop, pale and bluish, the light catching in her eyes. She wore a loose white cardigan over a dark shirt. No makeup that he could see. No careful arrangement. Just Cindy at two in the morning, caught between one stranger and the next.

Her lips parted.

“Farid?” / “Farid?”

His name sounded different through the laptop speaker. Smaller. Farther away. As if it had travelled a long distance and lost warmth along the way.

Farid swallowed. His throat felt dry, though he had finished half a glass of water minutes ago. He could see himself in the tiny preview window at the corner of the screen: tired eyes, unshaven jaw, hair flattened on one side from running his hand through it too many times.

He tried to smile and failed halfway.

“Cindy?” / “Cindy?”

A laugh escaped her, but it was not really laughter. It was the sound someone made when surprise and grief reached the mouth at the same time and did not know which one should leave first. She covered her lips with her fingers for a moment, then lowered her hand slowly, like any sudden movement might break the connection.

The internet lagged. Her face froze for half a breath, blurred, then returned.

Neither of them spoke.

Farid could hear the faint hum of his laptop fan. Somewhere outside his window, a motorcycle passed along the wet road, its engine thinning into the distance. His room smelled faintly of stale coffee and the citrus cleaner Bunda had insisted he use on the floor earlier that evening. Ordinary things, all of them. The world had the nerve to remain ordinary.

Cindy looked down, then back at him. Her eyes moved over his face with the cautious disbelief of someone touching an old bruise.

“Kamu ngapain di sini?” / “What are you doing here?”

The question landed more gently than it should have. It should have sounded accusatory, maybe even embarrassed, but Cindy said it as if she were asking how he had found his way into a place meant for people who had no past between them.

Farid glanced at the button again. Next. He imagined pressing it now. Her face disappearing. A stranger replacing her. The night correcting itself.

Instead, he pulled his hand away from the trackpad and rested it on the desk.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he wanted to say. He almost did. But there was too much old ease in that answer, too much muscle memory. So he only shrugged a little, looking away from the camera.

“Gapapa. Aku akhir-akhir ini lagi suka ngobrol aja sama orang-orang.” / “Nothing much. Lately I’ve just liked talking to random people.”

It took him half a second to realize she had answered first.

Farid looked back at her. The corner of his mouth lifted before he could stop it, not because it was funny, but because it was so wrong. Cindy, who used to complain whenever he made small talk with Grab drivers for too long. Cindy, who said anonymous chats were “too chaotic” and strangers online always wanted something. Cindy, who preferred familiar cafés, familiar seats, familiar orders, and people whose intentions she could read before they spoke.

“That is so not you.” / “That is so not you.”

Her smile trembled.

“I know...” / “I know...”

The words carried more than agreement. They carried months. They carried the shape of someone who had tried many versions of herself just to survive one ending. Farid heard it and wished he had not. It would have been easier if she looked happy in a clean, complete way. Easier if her voice held no cracks he still recognized.

Cindy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It slipped loose again immediately.

“Well... aku harus berubah, kan?” / “Well... I have to change, right?”

He breathed out through his nose. A heavy, uneven sound. His gaze dropped to the desk, to the ring of condensation his glass had left on the wood. Change. People used the word as if it were a neat thing, a suitcase packed for a better city. They rarely spoke about how much of change was just learning not to reach for what was gone.

“Ya...” / “Yeah...”

He tried to say more, but the sentence collapsed somewhere inside him. So he let the sigh finish it.

“Ya... I guess.” / “Yeah... I guess.”

Cindy nodded once, slowly. The gesture looked rehearsed, like she had been nodding at difficult truths for a long time.

Again, silence.

It was strange how silence between them still had a shape. During the good days, it had been comfortable, full of background noise: her typing while he worked, him washing dishes while she talked to Bunda, Momo meowing for attention, rain tapping against the window. After everything ended, silence had become punishment. Now it sat between them like an old friend who had aged badly.

Farid noticed she was holding a mug with both hands. Her thumbs rubbed the ceramic rim in small circles. She had always done that when she was nervous, especially at restaurants when she wanted to say something but did not know whether it would make the night worse.

“Kamu apa kabar?” / “How are you?”

She said it too carefully.

Then, as if afraid the question sounded too intimate, she added quickly, “Umm... People told me you’re doing good?” / “Umm... orang-orang bilang kamu baik-baik aja?”

People.

Dimas, maybe. Or someone from their old circle. A friend of a friend who had seen his promotion post, or a photo from a gathering where he had smiled at the camera because smiling was easier than explaining anything. Farid wondered what version of him had reached her. Doing good. Working. Laughing. Alive.

He leaned back slightly. The chair creaked beneath him.

“Hmm. Ya... alhamdulillah, I’m doing good. I’m doing good.” / “Hmm. Yeah... praise be to God, I’m doing good. I’m doing good.”

The repetition embarrassed him the moment it left his mouth. People only repeated things like that when they were trying to make them true.

Cindy did not call him out on it. That was mercy, or maybe guilt, or maybe both.

“How are you?” he asked, softer now. “Aku udah nggak pernah lihat kabar kamu lagi sejak... you know... semua akunku kan kamu block.” / “How are you? I haven’t seen any updates from you since... you know... you blocked all my accounts.”

There it was.

Not an accusation. He made sure it was not an accusation. But the words had weight anyway. They pulled something into the room that both of them had been stepping around.

Cindy’s face changed. Not dramatically. Her eyes lowered. Her mouth pressed together for a second, then loosened. She looked older like that. Not in years, but in the way people aged when they had forced themselves to do the right thing and hated the cost.

“You know it’s the best for both of us, right?” / “Kamu tahu itu yang terbaik untuk kita berdua, kan?”

Farid looked at her through the screen. The laptop made her seem close enough to touch and far enough to prove the cruelty of glass.

He remembered the week after she blocked him. He had discovered it one platform at a time, like walking through a house and finding every door locked from the other side. WhatsApp first. Then Instagram. Then an old account she barely used. Even the playlist they had shared was gone from his view. At the time, he had sat on the edge of his bed and laughed once, softly, because the thoroughness of it was so Cindy. If she decided to save herself, she would do it properly.

He had not tried to bypass it.

He had typed her email once, stared at the blank draft, then closed it.

“Yeah.” His voice came out lower than he expected. “I know.” / “Iya. Aku tahu.”

Cindy’s shoulders lowered, but relief did not come. Only the next silence.

Momo shifted in his sleep behind Farid, making a soft complaining noise. Cindy’s eyes flicked past him toward the movement. Something opened in her expression before she could guard it.

“Bunda apa kabar?” / “How is your mom?”

Farid turned slightly, as if his mother might somehow be standing behind him too. She was asleep in the next room, probably with the television still murmuring low because she always claimed she was “resting her eyes” and then surrendered to sleep halfway through a drama.

“She’s good.” He smiled despite himself. “Masih suka nanyain kamu.” / “She’s good. She still asks about you.”

Cindy inhaled.

It was barely audible, but Farid heard it. Or maybe he remembered enough of her to imagine the sound exactly.

“Oh...” She looked down into her mug. “Puji Tuhan.” / “Oh... thank God.”

Her faith had always entered conversations differently from his, but never as a wall between them at first. Back then, their differences had seemed like rooms in the same house. Later, when families and futures and ceremonies became real, those rooms had turned into separate buildings across a road neither of them knew how to cross safely.

She cleared her throat, trying to gather herself.

“Umm... Momo? Masih suka garuk-garuk sofa?” / “Umm... Momo? Does he still scratch the sofa?”

Farid laughed before he could stop himself.

It came out warm. Too warm. For one dangerous second, the years folded. He was back in the living room, Cindy sitting cross-legged on the floor, pointing at Momo with mock severity while Bunda threatened to send the cat for “military school.” Cindy had laughed until she leaned against the sofa, and Farid had watched her with the private certainty of someone who thought there would be countless more evenings like that.

“Masih.” / “Still does.”

He turned the laptop a fraction, just enough for the camera to catch the orange heap behind him. Momo remained asleep, shameless and enormous.

“Bunda masih suka marahin dia sampai sekarang.” / “Mom still scolds him even now.”

Cindy leaned closer to her screen. The light caught the wetness in her eyes, though she smiled.

“Oh, dia makin gede, by the way,” Farid added, because if he stopped talking he might feel too much. “Sekarang udah hampir sembilan kilo beratnya.” / “Oh, he’s gotten bigger, by the way. He’s almost nine kilos now.”

“What?” Cindy’s mouth opened in genuine shock. “That’s so big!” / “Apa? Besar banget!”

Farid nodded, smiling. “I know.”

“Lucu banget dong dia sekarang.” / “He must be so cute now.”

Her voice softened around the next words.

“I miss him.” / “Aku kangen dia.”

She said him, not you. It was safer that way. Both of them knew it.

Farid turned the laptop back toward himself. His smile stayed for a moment, then slowly faded as the remembered warmth drained from the room. There were things a person could circle only for so long before the center demanded to be named.

He looked at Cindy. Really looked at her.

The tiredness beneath her eyes. The careful composure. The ringless fingers wrapped around the mug, though he knew that would change soon. The woman he had loved was still there, but life had placed new distance around her.

“Dimas told me about your plan.” / “Dimas cerita soal rencana kamu.”

Cindy went still.

Farid’s chest tightened, but he kept his voice even.

“Akhir tahun ini, ya?” / “End of this year, right?”

Her fingers stopped moving on the mug.

“Iya.” / “Yes.”

One word. A small word. It crossed the screen and rearranged the air in his room.

Farid nodded slowly.

He had known already. Of course he had known. Dimas had told him weeks ago in a café where the air-conditioning was too cold and the coffee tasted burnt. Farid had nodded then too. He had asked if Cindy looked happy. He had gone home and fed Momo twice by accident. Knowing was one thing. Hearing it from her mouth was another. It made the future less like gossip and more like a door closing with both of them watching.

Cindy looked as if she wanted to explain. Maybe to apologize. Maybe to say she had not forgotten. Maybe to say forgetting was not required for moving on. Farid hoped she would not. He did not trust himself with explanations tonight.

So he asked the only question he could ask without being selfish.

“Does he treat you well?” / “Dia memperlakukan kamu dengan baik?”

Cindy’s eyes lifted to his.

For a moment, something raw passed across her face. Pain, gratitude, regret. Farid did not know. Maybe all three had become the same expression by now.

She took a slow breath.

“He really does, Rid.” / “Dia benar-benar baik sama aku, Rid.”

Rid.

No one else called him that the way she did. Short, soft, familiar. A name that belonged to old phone calls and quiet walks and her voice through rain.

Farid absorbed the answer.

It hurt. Of course it hurt. Some small, shameful part of him had wanted hesitation. Not cruelty. Never cruelty. Just a pause long enough to prove that what they had lost remained unmatched. But Cindy gave him honesty instead, and love—whatever form of love still survived in him—required him not to resent her for being cared for.

He nodded.

“Good.” / “Bagus.”

The word almost broke, so he cleared his throat and tried again.

“That’s great.” / “Itu bagus.”

Cindy’s eyes shone now, openly. She did not wipe them. Maybe she was tired of pretending every feeling could be managed before it became visible.

Farid forced his mouth into something like a smile.

“Selamat ya.” / “Congratulations.”

He let the blessing come before the grief could stop it.

“Semoga semua lancar.” / “I hope everything goes smoothly.”

Cindy closed her eyes for half a second.

“Thank you...” / “Terima kasih...”

Her voice was thin.

“Amin.” / “Amen.”

Farid looked down. His hand had curled into a fist on the desk without him noticing. He opened it slowly, finger by finger. There was a small crescent mark where his nail had pressed into his palm.

When he looked back up, Cindy seemed to be fighting with herself. She shifted in her seat, glanced away, then returned her gaze to him with the anxious bravery he remembered from the day she had ended things. She had cried then, but she had not changed her mind. That had been the cruelest part. Her pain had been real, and so had her decision.

“Umm, by the way...” She swallowed. “Soal undangannya, I think...” / “Umm, by the way... about the invitation, I think...”

Farid knew immediately.

He lifted one hand, gentle but firm, stopping her before she had to form the sentence.

“Gapapa.” / “It’s okay.”

Cindy’s mouth remained slightly open.

“It’s okay,” he repeated, softer. “Gausah.” / “You don’t have to.”

The relief that crossed her face hurt almost as much as the wedding itself. Not because she did not want him there. Because she had known he would understand. Because even now, their kindness to each other still worked.

“Kayaknya emang itu yang paling baik.” / “I think that’s probably for the best.”

Cindy nodded. Once. Then again, smaller.

“I agree.” / “Aku setuju.”

There was no anger in it. No drama. Just two people standing on opposite sides of a boundary they had built together because crossing it would destroy them differently.

Farid tried to laugh.

It came out awkward, brittle around the edges. He rubbed his face with one hand and glanced at the bottom corner of his screen. The time glowed white against the dark interface.

2:07 a.m.

He latched onto it with gratitude. Time was ordinary. Time gave people excuses when emotion became too honest.

“Kamu masih suka begadang ya sampai sekarang.” / “You still stay up late, huh?”

Cindy blinked, then followed his gaze as if the hour had only just occurred to her.

“Ini udah jam dua, loh.” / “It’s already two, you know.”

His voice found an old teasing shape, but softer now, careful not to sound like he still had the right.

“Besok kamu ada kerja, kan?” / “You have work tomorrow, right?”

For the first time since their faces appeared on each other’s screens, Cindy smiled without looking as though it cost her everything.

“Ya kamu juga sama.” / “You too.”

Farid huffed a small laugh.

Cindy tilted her head, and for a second she looked almost like the girl who used to scold him for answering work emails after midnight while secretly doing the same thing.

“Kita sama-sama masih bangun jam dua.” / “We’re both still awake at two.”

The sentence settled between them, tender and terrible.

They had changed. They had not changed enough.

Farid looked at her, and the old instinct rose so quickly he almost obeyed it. Tell me when you reach home. Drink water. Don’t sleep with your hair wet. Send me your schedule so I know when not to disturb you. The small caretaking rituals of a relationship no longer alive.

He bit the inside of his cheek.

“Yaudah, I guess...” / “Well then, I guess...”

Cindy nodded, but neither of them moved.

“We both need some sleep, ya?” / “We both need some sleep, right?”

“I guess.” He let out a quiet breath. “Ya.” / “I guess. Yeah.”

The cursor still hovered near Next.

Neither clicked it.

Outside, the rain began again. Farid noticed only because the first drops struck the window in uneven taps, like someone testing whether a door was locked. Cindy seemed to hear rain too, or maybe it was raining where she was as well. Her eyes shifted briefly toward something beyond her laptop, and the silence that followed was strangely full, as if both of them were listening to different windows in the same old house.

There were so many things Farid could say.

I missed you.

I hated that I understood.

Bunda still cooks too much when she makes the soup you liked.

I saw a woman wearing your perfume at the train station and had to stand still for a minute.

I hope he knows you pretend to be okay before you know you are hurt.

I hope you laugh loudly again.

I hope I stop looking for you in every place where strangers pass.

But love, when it arrived too late, had to learn manners. So he kept the words behind his teeth and allowed only the safest ones to live.

Cindy seemed to be doing the same. Her gaze held his for longer than it should have. In the low blue light, she looked both near and unreachable, like a memory the mind had sharpened out of self-defense.

“Wow...” she whispered.

Farid did not know whether she meant the coincidence, the cruelty, the mercy, or simply the fact that they had survived long enough to sit here like this.

She placed her mug down. The sound was faint through the microphone.

“Take care, Rid.” / “Jaga diri ya, Rid.”

Her eyes did not leave his.

“It’s really good to see you again.” / “Senang banget bisa lihat kamu lagi.”

Farid’s chest ached with the effort of remaining still.

He smiled. Not happily. Not sadly, exactly. Just honestly enough that she would understand the part of him he was not going to say.

“It’s really good to see you, Cin.” / “Senang banget bisa lihat kamu juga, Cin.”

The nickname came out before he could stop it.

Cindy’s face tightened slightly, as if the sound had touched something tender. She nodded, her lips pressed together.

Farid forced himself to continue before courage abandoned him.

“Sehat-sehat ya.” / “Stay healthy, okay?”

It was such a small blessing. Too small for everything he meant. But perhaps that was why it could survive being spoken.

Cindy’s eyes filled again. She blinked once, and a tear slipped down before she could catch it. She turned her face slightly, wiping it with the heel of her hand, almost annoyed with herself. Farid looked away to give her privacy, though the gesture was useless through a screen.

When he looked back, she was smiling faintly.

“You too,” she said, almost under her breath. “Kamu juga.” / “You too.”

Farid nodded.

The moment had reached its edge. Both of them knew it. If they stayed longer, the conversation would begin to ask for things neither could give. It would start politely, with one more question, then another memory, then maybe laughter, then perhaps a confession disguised as concern. The night was dangerous because it was gentle. It offered no obvious cliff, only a soft slope back toward longing.

Farid moved his hand to the trackpad.

His finger hovered.

He had imagined many versions of goodbye. Angry ones in the weeks after the breakup, when hurt made him cruel in private. Dramatic ones when songs caught him at the wrong time. Noble ones where he said exactly the right thing and walked away clean. None of them had looked like this: his old love in a small rectangle of light, his cat asleep behind him, rain touching the window, both of them too tired to pretend they were strangers and too careful to pretend they were anything else.

He took a breath.

“Right.” / “Baiklah.”

Cindy straightened slightly, as if preparing herself.

“I gotta go.” / “Aku harus pergi.”

He watched the words land. Watched her accept them. Watched her do him the kindness of not asking him to stay.

“Goodbye, Cin.” / “Selamat tinggal, Cin.”

For a second, she did not answer.

The silence was not empty. It was crowded with every goodbye they had never managed properly. The one after the final call. The one hidden inside the blocking. The one Farid had whispered to an unfinished email. The one Cindy had folded into an invitation list without his name.

Then Cindy smiled.

It was small. Shaking. Brave.

“Bye.” / “Sampai jumpa.”

Her English word and the translation in Farid’s mind did not quite match. Bye was light. Sampai jumpa meant until we meet again. But there would be no promise in it tonight. Only softness. Only an ending that did not know how to be cruel.

Farid clicked.

The screen changed.

A stranger appeared for half a second, a boy in a dark room leaning too close to his camera. Farid disconnected immediately.

The room fell quiet.

For a while, he did not move. His hand remained on the trackpad, his eyes fixed on the blank page where Cindy’s face had been. The rain grew steadier, filling the edges of the night. Momo yawned behind him and stretched one paw against the sofa cover, claws catching lightly in the fabric.

Farid turned around.

“Momo,” he said, voice rough.

The cat ignored him and scratched once.

Farid laughed.

It surprised him, the sound. Small, broken, but real. He pushed his chair back and went to the sofa, lowering himself carefully onto the floor beside Momo. The cat opened one eye, judged him unworthy of attention, and went back to sleep.

Farid rested his head against the cushion.

The house smelled like old rain and cat fur and the detergent Bunda used on everything. From the hallway came the faint glow of the night-light she always left on, though Farid had told her a hundred times he was old enough not to need it. Maybe she left it for herself. Maybe mothers kept lights on because they knew their children came home from grief at strange hours.

His phone lay on the desk behind him. For the first time in months, he did not want to check whether he was still blocked. He knew he was. He hoped he was.

On the other side of the city, or maybe farther than that, Cindy would be closing her laptop too. Perhaps she would sit with both hands over her face. Perhaps she would go to bed quietly beside the future she had chosen. Perhaps she would whisper a prayer he would never hear.

Farid closed his eyes.

The conversation replayed, but not as a wound. Not yet as peace either. Something in between. A bandage being removed carefully from skin that had finally stopped bleeding.

Does he treat you well?

He really does, Rid.

Good.

That was the part he held onto. Not because it did not hurt, but because it gave the hurt somewhere honorable to stand.

Behind him, the laptop screen dimmed, then went black.

Farid stayed on the floor until the rain softened and the room lost its blue glow. Near dawn, when the first pale light began to thin the darkness at the window, Momo shifted closer in his sleep, his warm weight pressing against Farid’s arm.

Farid did not move away.