It's 11:50 PM.
Outside my window, the world is wrapped in a heavy winter silence—the kind of silence that feels like it's listening. The moonlight spills across my desk like a whisper, casting shadows over old papers, an unopened book, and the clock that's slowly ticking toward midnight.
Ten more minutes.
Ten minutes before this day disappears. Ten minutes until the calendar moves forward. Ten minutes until it marks exactly one month since I last saw her.
You'd think time would have done its job by now—healing, softening, erasing. But time has its own rules. It doesn't always move forward. Sometimes it circles back—dragging you with it, pulling you into moments you thought you'd left behind.
And tonight… it brought me back to her.
The strange part is, I don't feel heartbroken. Not the way they describe it in movies—no tears, no screaming into a pillow, no dramatic playlists on repeat. I go about my days like anyone else. I smile when I have to. I laugh when it's expected. I sleep. I wake. I live.
But I can't call this peace.
Because somewhere, buried between those quiet routines, lives a memory I never gave permission to stay.
And that memory begins with her voice, soft and trembling, asking me something that still echoes louder than everything else.
"Do you still think I was wrong?"
That was the last thing she asked me—the final string between us.
I remember staring at her across the table, the café lights painting her face in soft amber. Her eyes were searching for something—maybe closure, maybe forgiveness, maybe a version of me I had buried months ago.
And yet, I didn't answer.
Not because I didn't want to.
But because her question was the kind that opens doors you're not sure you want to walk through.
Tonight, as the cold creeps under my sleeves and the minute hand inches closer to twelve, I realize something:
Some people don't leave your life; they just leave the room.
They linger in the pauses between conversations, in the back of familiar songs, in the taste of coffee gone cold.
She was never meant to stay forever.
But she stayed long enough to become a season I keep returning to.
I don't know if I'll ever answer her question.
But I know this much—
Some nights don't need storms to be unforgettable.
Sometimes, all it takes is a silent clock and a memory that refuses to sleep.