Almost, Always, Never
I remember whispering those words, my voice swallowed by the wind as I gazed at him from afar—the boy who once promised me forever.
“I’ll find you when we grow up. I’ll search the world just to be with you again.” He had said it with such certainty, as if the universe itself had written our fate in the stars. I held onto that promise like a lifeline.
But time has a cruel way of unraveling even the strongest of vows.
I waited. And waited. And waited. But he never came back.
When I finally searched for him, desperate to fill the aching void he left behind, I found him—smiling, holding someone else’s hand, walking beside her like she was his world.
I became nothing more than a stranger to him, a forgotten chapter in his story. Yet, in that single moment, my heart shattered as if I had been foolish enough to believe love could defy time.
“I searched and found you,” he murmured, standing before me once more, his gaze unreadable.
But fate is unkind.
I had spent years chasing a shadow, drowning in an ocean of longing, only to reach the shore and realize he had already built a home without me.
“I loved you… Goodbye.”
I turned away, but he caught my wrist, his grip trembling.
“Please,” he pleaded, “this time might be ours.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks, but I pulled away. I had spent too long waiting for him to return, only to find that love had never truly been mine to keep.
“I still love you,” I whispered to the wind.
“And I’m glad that, for a moment, you knew.”
That night, I lay in bed, feeling both relieved and empty, my heart a battlefield of memories and unfulfilled dreams.
Years passed. I grew older. I lived, I breathed, but I remained alone.
And one day, as sleep embraced me like an old friend, I wondered—would my heart ever stop searching for him? Or would someone finally find me and lead me toward a destiny where love no longer meant waiting in vain?
