Half a Decade, and the Quiet That Followed
Some love doesn’t announce itself. It stays. It watches. It waits. Five years is a strange amount of time to carry something unnamed — too long to dismiss, too quiet to explain. Time moved forward. The world shifted, paused, rebuilt itself. Her heart didn’t. Love didn’t arrive with intention. It settled. Slowly. Silently. Like something that had always been meant to stay. She never blamed him. That was the hardest part. There was no promise. No label. No moment she could point to and say, “This is where it began.” It simply existed. The way breathing does. To him, she was a friend — and he was kind in that role. He never pretended to be more. He never made promises he couldn’t keep. If anything, his honesty was gentle, even when it hurt. And that is why she never made him the villain in her story. Because how do you accuse someone for not feeling the same depth you do? Her love was not born out of expectations. It was born out of presence. Out of listening. Out ...