They were never meant to stay.
Not because they didn’t want to. But because the world, in all its quiet cruelty, simply wouldn’t allow it.
~~~
He met her in a season where nothing was blooming. And yet, when she laughed, it felt like spring had returned just for him.
She had the kind of eyes that carried old sadness, and still looked at him like he was something gentle. He had the kind of heart that broke easily and gave itself even easier.
For a while, that was enough...
Mornings were slow and full of shared silences between them. Her head on his chest... His fingers softly tracing the outline of her shoulder, as if memorizing it for when it would be gone.
Evenings were warm and full of unspoken things, breaths and words caught in the throat like birds too afraid to fly.
They loved each other in the kind of way people write about, that never quite believe is real.
And maybe that was the curse...
Maybe, a love like that burns too brightly.
Maybe it asks for too much from a world made of time, of duties, of distance...
~~~
One day, without warning, he stopped meeting her at the place by the willow tree.
And she knew...
He left her a letter. Tucked, in the hollow of the trunk.
“If I stayed, I’d only ruin the very thing I loved most in this world. Forgive me...”
... She read the letter again and again, until the ink blurred with her tears.
Then she folded it, like a secret prayer and tucked it near her heart.
As if paper could keep him close...
~~~
For days, weeks... She searched for him in everything.
In the morning breeze, in the way it tousled her hair like he used to...
In the music they once played in the bedroom, barefoot and laughing...
As if time didn’t exist when they were together.
She played his songs on repeat. Not for the lyrics, but for the sound of his voice beneath the melody.
It was the only way she could still feel his presence, like he was sitting beside her... Unseen, but near.
Sometimes she spoke to him, as if he could still hear her...
And sometimes she whispered to the silence.
"Why did you go, if you loved me?"
... But there was no answer.
Only the wind.
Only the empty side of the bed...
~~~
So she began to look inward.
Not for him. But for the lesson he left behind.
Maybe love wasn’t always meant to stay.
Maybe it came to show us how deeply we can feel.
How wide the soul could stretch.
How loss could carve us open…
And still, we could keep breathing... Moving... Living...
~~~
The seasons passed, but her heart stayed in the in-between.
Not winter... Not spring.
Just the quiet ache of after. The after-him...
She stopped searching for him in the crowds. Stopped hoping for footsteps behind her. But she never stopped listening.
Some nights, when the world was hushed and kind, she swore she could feel him near... Like warmth on her skin with no source.
Like the ghost of a hand, that once held hers too tightly to ever let go... To ever let go...
And yet…
She grew...
... In the space he left behind, flowers began to bloom.
Not all at once. Not all the same...
Some bloomed from sorrow. Others from the strength of simply staying... Of waking up, of making tea, of singing and drawing, of writing again...
He had been a chapter.
One written in fire and soft hands. One that whispered I love you’s, that still lingered in the air.
But she...
She was the story. The story he had left behind...
~~~
And one day, as she walked beneath the willow tree, she no longer wept.
She looked up, sunlight and soft wind dancing between the leaves... She closed her eyes and whispered not why, but thank you...
Not for the pain.
But for the love that had lived in her.
And for the woman she had become because of it.
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