Years passed, and life, as it often does, carried me forward. But you never left me. You were there in the quiet moments, in the places we once walked, in the silver glow of the stars that I still watched every night. You became the love I carried with me—gentle, eternal, untouched by time.
I had grown, changed, moved to a new city where the buildings reached for the sky, but I still returned to the hill sometimes, just to remember. Just to feel you near me.
Then, on an evening when the sun dipped low and turned the sky to fire and gold, I found myself in a place I didn't expect to be—a small gallery on a cobblestone street, where soft music drifted through the air and the walls were filled with sketches that looked familiar.
Mountains wrapped in clouds. Cities glimmering like diamonds. Quiet portraits of people with unspoken stories in their eyes.
I froze. My heart stumbled.
Yours.
The room felt small, the air thick with memories as I walked deeper into the gallery, my fingers brushing the edge of a frame. And then I saw it—a sketch of a hill beneath a sky full of stars. Our hill.
My breath caught, and a voice I hadn't heard in years echoed behind me.
"You're always here."
I turned, my heart pounding.
And there you were.
Time had touched you, but gently, as though it knew better than to change you too much. Your eyes were still bright, still searching, still full of that light I had carried with me for so long.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The years stretched between us like a bridge we didn't know how to cross.
"You're here," I finally said, my voice soft, trembling.
You smiled—that smile. "I was hoping you would come."