Forever is a word we used to say so easily.
"I'll be here forever."
"We'll paint the world together, forever."
"Forever sounds like you and me."
But forever didn't last, did it?
Not in the way we imagined.
Still… I've started to realize something: maybe forever isn't a stretch of time. Maybe it's the moments that stay with us, long after they've passed.
And you, Yuna—you gave me so many of those.
There's this box I keep under my bed now. It's small, wooden, with a worn brass latch. Inside are the pieces of you I refuse to let go of.
A dried ginkgo leaf from that autumn we spent watching the trees turn gold.
The ticket stub from the film you made me watch twice—even though you cried both times.
A sketch you doodled on the back of my class notes. A girl with clouds in her eyes.
And one of your letters, the one where you said:
*"Some people leave footprints on your soul, not your skin. You won't always see them, but you'll feel them when you need them most."*
I reach for that letter more often now.
Especially on the days when the world feels heavy, and I wonder if I'm still becoming the person you believed I could be.
Sometimes I'm scared I'm not.
Sometimes I still wish I could go back and change things—hold your hand tighter, listen more closely, stay longer on that rooftop.
But most days… I just breathe.
And remember.
That love like ours doesn't vanish.
It settles quietly, gently, into the folds of your being.
It becomes part of how you see the world.
I see you in my kindness.
In how I now speak softer, love deeper, notice more.
You've shaped me.
Forever may not have been a lifetime.
But it was enough.
Enough to break me.
Enough to build me.
Enough to keep you alive in all the ways that matter.
You were never mine forever, Yuna.
But I was changed by you—
completely,
irrevocably,
beautifully.
And that…
That is its own kind of forever.
—