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Under his raincoat, pressed against his back. The younger me was still learning how to want something without knowing how to keep it close. The last time, his fingers threaded through mine. We spoke about that rain, that day, the movie that night. Today, I’m here again. Carrying work as an excuse, though it keeps brushing against the memory I pretend not to touch. Back when us still felt possible. Back when I thought we’d grow old under the same black-and-white blanket. But now, the ache calls me by name. I know the shape of this tightness, how it swells inside my chest. Only this time, it doesn’t pierce clean through. It’s a long, blunt needle pressing deeper. Cruel enough to let me feel every ours that I’ve lost.

I've kept my eyes from chasing your name, taught my hands not to reach  for any trace of you. I thought I'd drawn the line.  Thought this might work. I tried to finish the feelings, patiently.  Sometimes still letting them stop by as if they might leave on their own.  I thought I could. I thought I'd grown. Then I saw you. Not on purpose.  Not in any way I could prepare for. And just like that, you tore through every wall I've been rebuilding.  Hole after hole. Until there was no wall at all. So what now? The gap cuts again. And God, I miss you so much, in a way that makes me unsure I could survive this twice. 

Today I read: “You won’t find the same person twice, not even in the same person.” And something in me sank. Because I knew I wasn’t holding on to him. I was holding on to the boy he used to be. The one who smiled like he meant it, the one who hadn’t yet learned to guard his heart so well. And maybe I stayed because I believed that version of him was just buried. For so long, I didn’t know who I was saying goodbye to. The person he became, or the version I kept alive in my memory. Maybe that’s the strangest part: How the love I lost feels more like a life I dreamt than one I lived. And maybe, just maybe, the grief isn’t about losing him. But finally letting go of the person he never promised to stay as. And I guess, now, that’s okay.

Not like the first. When everything shattered, and I let someone else carry what I didn’t know how to hold. Even if I wasn’t ready to let it go. Not like the second. When I still believed that loving harder might fix what was already broken. That if I gave more, you’d come back whole. Not because I’ve healed, too. Definitely not because it stopped hurting. But because even forgetting started to feel like pretending. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost you. But I guess this is the first time I’m not trying to win you back. Not by becoming someone you might’ve stayed for. I’ve tried all of it. I’ve rewritten memories. I’ve blamed timing. I’ve blamed myself. I’ve begged reality to bend. It didn’t. Because time moves fast but it wounds slowly. It only makes it easier to carry around in public. I still don’t know how far this goes. Or what healing is supposed to look like. I just know I’ve stopped chasing the end of it. And I don’t believe anymore that pai...

But I've stepped out of his gravity. There was a time I thought I'd shine brighter orbiting his. As if light only made sense when it came from his direction. Maybe now, I want to be the sea. Or maybe dust. A part of everything  and owed to no one.  Maybe a voice, a line between letters. Or a scent that lingers in the doorway, long after I've left. Maybe I just want to be human again. Someone ordinary. Someone allowed to feel joy without apologizing for it. Someone who still waits for good news without bracing for the worst. Who still hopes. Who forgets, and forgives herself, anyway. I still look at the sky. Mostly after dawn, when everything is hushed, and the prayers still hang in the air. He's probably shining somewhere else now. He always belonged  to a different sky than the one I could reach. And yes, some nights I miss him before I even realize I do. And some mornings, I still look for him out of habit. Glance upward as if he'd still be there. But I'm lear...

To all the reasons why there's always space for him in me.  Not because of some glimpse of us. Not because some memory slipped through. It's just because I missed what it felt like to keep him close. I traced the places we passed. Replayed the little habits, held again our loud, biggest shared dreams.  I pulled out the feeling  of meeting him for the first time, and every time after that. The memories came not in order. As if they, too, had been waiting to be felt again.  His presence.  The way he gave me time. His laughter. The one that melts everything numbed. The one I swore I would keep safe for as long as I could. So today, I remembered him fully. Not to make sense of why. Not to search for lessons in the loss. Not to ask what went wrong.  I just let myself remember him. And the way he made me fall again, and again, and again, and again. And as much as I've tried to accept what is, I still find it easier to explain why it was only ever him.