She loved him in a way that had no future and no permission to exist.

He was not hers, and she was not his, and she understood that truth with a clarity that hurt more than denial ever could. Some loves are not meant to be lived out loud. Some are meant to be carried quietly, like a scar only the heart can see.

Still, he lived inside her. Not as a memory fading with time, but as a presence that never left. There would always be a space in her heart shaped exactly like him, untouched by anyone else. It didn’t matter who stood beside her in life, or who rested their head on his shoulder. Her heart had already chosen, and it did not ask for logic or forgiveness. It simply was.

Her soul ached for what it remembered. his touch, the way his kiss felt like coming home, the safety of his embrace. She missed him in the smallest moments, in the quiet between breaths, in the nights when the world felt too heavy and sleep refused to come.

She didn’t wish for a lifetime anymore. She knew better than that. All she wanted, just once, was to hold him again. To feel his arms around her, solid and real, as if the universe might pause long enough for her to believe he was hers. Just one last time. One last moment where nothing else existed.

And if that moment never came, she would carry him anyway. For eternity.