Her Pov
The day I left, I didn't cry. There was no dramatic pause, no looking back with trembling lips or tear-filled eyes. I just walked forward into a place I didn't know, hoping it would be easier to forget if everything around me was unfamiliar. I wanted silence more than comfort, routine more than romance. And in that unfamiliar district, I tried to create a new version of myself.
The days began to blur into each other. Classes, libraries, endless notes and study sessions that stretched into late evenings. I buried myself in books and tried to memorise formulas instead of memories. I made friends, laughed at their jokes, celebrated small achievements. And to anyone watching, I was just another girl living her life, doing what she came here to do.
But in the quietest parts of my mind, he was still there, not as loudly but in echoes. I didn't think of him every day. But when I did, it stung, like when your skin brushes against an old scar that never fully healed. Some nights I would sit by the window, watching streetlights flicker over empty roads, and wonder what he was doing in that moment. Wonder if he ever paused to think about me too.
Every time I came back to town during college breaks, it felt like stepping into a memory that still had my name written all over it, quiet and familiar and aching in all the places I had tried to forget.
The faces around me stayed the same, as if time had folded in on itself. I wandered through familiar lanes where the air still held echoes I couldn't quite name. Sometimes, without intending to, I passed by places I once knew well, doors I didn't dare look at too long, windows that flickered with memory. And once in a while, a figure in the distance would steal my breath for a heartbeat. I never paused, never asked, never said a word. But my eyes, traitorous as they were, always searched before I even realized it. Sometimes from a distance I thought I saw him and for a moment everything around me slowed. I never let anyone know, never asked anyone anything, but deep inside I wished to catch even a fleeting glimpse of him, as if seeing him just once might calm the ache I no longer spoke of.
I wore the mask of someone who had let go, and maybe I really had in some ways, but a soft corner remained untouched and stubborn. That corner never let me forget that once upon a time, I had imagined forever with him.
After that second year in college, I drifted quietly through the days, not seeking anyone, not expecting much. I kept to myself, learning how to be alone without feeling lonely. The walls I built weren't high but they were steady, and I let only a few people in. Among them was someone I had known for a long time, someone whose presence felt familiar, like an old tune you forget the lyrics to but still hum along with.
He entered my life like someone meant to stay. A familiar face, an easy presence. Not a stranger, but not someone I had imagined walking beside me either. It wasn't love at first, just comfort, just the ease of being understood without having to explain too much. And I mistook that ease for something deeper.
But people like him don't carry love. They carry want, need, thrill. He called me by names that felt sweet at first but turned bitter over time. He spun stories while looking me in the eye and kept another story running behind my back. One moment I thought I was enough, the next I was watching him call someone else what he once called me.
No apology ever came. Just lies that unraveled slowly until there was nothing left to hold onto.
So I didn't. I let go without noise. Because when someone turns out to be nothing like what you believed, the only thing left to do is leave. And I did.
I grew stronger, not all at once, but like how a tree grows roots first before it dares to bloom again. I started saying no when I wanted to. I stopped apologising for taking space. I walked through that loneliness until I found comfort in it, until I realised it was better to be alone than to be loved wrongly.
Then came the city. Wider roads, hurried footsteps, unfamiliar faces that never looked twice. I slipped into the pace of it all like I had always belonged there. It was louder, colder in its silence, but freeing. For once I wasn't the girl who had to explain herself, who had to be strong or soft or anything in between. I was just one among many, breathing, moving, living. No eyes followed me around with memories, no voices whispered stories I didn't want to hear again.
I returned when I noticed how time had started to settle gently on my parents.
Mom laughed a little less loudly, and Dad preferred quiet evenings with the radio on.
They were still strong, still themselves but something in me knew it was time to be closer.
Not for any big reason, just for the little ones that matter more as we grow older.
The town had changed in little ways, shops that were once shuttered were now open, buildings taller, roads wider, the air somehow heavier with things unsaid. But even with all those changes, his presence lingered like a familiar shadow.
Retracing the steps that I used to know so well, something inside me settled. I had followed every road I could find, chased every feeling that felt like home. I had believed in moments and signs, in faces and promises. But in the end, none of those roads led to him. They weren't supposed to.
And maybe that was the lesson. Maybe that was the quiet truth. Some people were only meant to be memories, soft and painful, distant yet sharp. Not every door has to open again.
"The heart remembers what the mind tries to forget, but healing is the courage to keep walking even when the road no longer leads to them."
~Kapsang