Morning rose like a sigh. Slow. Silent. A pale grey spread across the sky, as if even the sun hesitated to begin again. I understood the feeling.
There are mornings when I wake up believing I've finally forgotten everything—your face, your laugh, even your name. But then something always pulls the past back: a song on the radio, a word I hadn't heard in months, or the way a stranger brushes past me in the street. And just like that, it's all there again, raw and sudden.
Today, I saw Maëlle.
It wasn't by accident. I no longer believe in accidents. Camille had mentioned her a few weeks ago, during one of our long conversations about time, grief, and the people we let slip away.
"She's gentle," Camille had said. "And bright. You should meet her. It wouldn't hurt to speak with someone other than your ghosts."
I didn't answer. But the thought stayed with me—like a seed buried beneath winter soil, waiting.
We met in a quiet café. Neutral territory. Nothing about it reminded me of you—not the smell, not the walls, not the music. I chose it for that reason. I needed somewhere you'd never been. Somewhere untouched by the past.
She was already there when I arrived, curled into the corner seat, reading a book and smiling softly to herself, as if the words were whispering something beautiful. She wore a mustard-yellow sweater and round glasses that made her look younger than she probably was.
"Léna?"
Her voice was light, almost musical.
"Yes. And you must be Maëlle."
We talked. About nothing. About everything. Her students, her travels, her habit of walking barefoot at home even in winter. She laughs with her eyes, Maëlle. And she listens. Really listens. It's rare.
And yet, sometime during the conversation, I caught myself comparing. It's stupid, I know. But memories have a way of slipping into present moments like shadows across sunlight.
You would've raised an eyebrow at that story. You would've laughed differently. You might have hated this café, or loved it. You lingered at the edges of the room, invisible and undeniable.
Can we love again when someone else still fills the room we walk into? When our hearts feel occupied by a voice we no longer hear?
I didn't ask Maëlle those questions. She didn't deserve to carry the weight of your absence. No one does.
A few days passed. We met again. A park this time. Children playing. Leaves falling. The kind of day that gently reminds you life goes on, with or without your permission.
We sat on a bench. She spoke about her childhood by the sea. I told her about photography, about moments captured before they vanish. I didn't tell her how often I used to photograph you without you noticing. How many of those photos still haunt my shelves.
There's a quietness to her that feels safe. Not dull—safe. As if I could breathe near her without effort.
Later, I told Camille. She looked at me like she had been waiting for this day for years.
"So?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "It's not fire. It's not the storm. It's... warm."
She smiled. "Maybe warmth is what you need now. Not everything that burns is love."
Camille always knows the exact thing to say.
Maëlle and I met again, and again. Once at an old bookstore. Once at the farmer's market. Slowly, without either of us realizing it, something began to grow between us. Not a replacement. A beginning.
But your name still lives on the back of my tongue.
Some nights, I wake up from dreams where we never broke. Where we still live in the apartment with the crooked window and the red curtain. Where you hum in the kitchen and I write at the table and we exist in an unbroken timeline.
But then I open my eyes. And it's not you beside me.
And it's okay.
One afternoon, Maëlle and I walked by the river. She stopped and looked at me—really looked.
"Do you still think about her?"
I didn't lie.
"Yes."
She nodded slowly, her gaze on the water.
"Then let me help you think about other things. Not to erase her. Just to let you breathe again."
Her words were like water on scorched earth.
A few weeks later, she invited me to the sea for the weekend. I said yes. And that yes felt heavier than any no I had ever spoken.
On the way, I played a song I hadn't heard in years. One we used to play with the windows down, our hair whipping in the wind. My heart stuttered. But when I looked at Maëlle, focused on the road, smiling, I realized something important: I wasn't running anymore.
I'm not trying to forget you, Élise. I never could.
You are part of my architecture. But Maëlle is a new room being built—not on top of you, but beside you.
At the shore, the light was soft, gold bleeding into pink. Maëlle ran barefoot on the sand, laughing like a child, arms stretched wide. I followed, and for a fleeting second, I thought I heard your laugh in the wind.
But it was mine.
I was laughing. And it didn't hurt.
That night, by the fire, she turned to me.
"Do you believe we can love more than once in a lifetime?"
I didn't hesitate.
"Yes. But never the same way."
She smiled.
"Then I want to be that other way."
Her voice trembled with honesty.
And for the first time in what felt like years, I wasn't afraid.
But grief is not linear. Healing does not follow rules. There are still days when your shadow walks beside me.
Like the afternoon I passed a flower shop and smelled jasmine. I turned sharply, certain you'd be there. You weren't. You never are. But I still check.
Or the morning I opened an old box and found the ticket from that night we danced in the rain, drenched and laughing like we had never been broken.
I didn't cry. I didn't smile either. I just held it for a while, then closed the box again.
The old lady on the bench was there again today. I sat beside her, finally.
She didn't ask why I looked tired. She simply said, "Hearts break. That's their job sometimes. But they also mend. Not perfectly. Sometimes better."
I looked at her and whispered, "I'm trying."
She nodded. "You're not failing. You're breathing."
Back home, I wrote in my journal:
Can we love again?
Yes.
But not by pretending the past didn't happen. Only by learning to carry it with grace.
Then, just before sleep, something happened.
A letter. Or rather, a photograph. No return address. Just a simple white envelope slipped through my door.
Inside: a picture of you.
Smiling. That same red dress. That same light in your eyes. The one from our first summer.
No message. No explanation. Just you.
My hands trembled.
Was it recent? Old? Why now?
The past doesn't knock when it returns. It just walks in like it never left.
And I… I don't know what to do.
Not yet.
To be continued…
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