THE GIRL WHO LOVED AFTER LOSING

EPILOGUE

It’s strange how the heart remembers everything in color — even the memories I’ve tried so hard to grey out.

I still have the band you gave me. It’s tucked in the drawer I never open unless I miss you too much. And God, I do. Still. Sometimes I hold it like it can bring back the warmth of your hands, your voice teasing, “Chicken,” and me pretending to be mad because I secretly loved it. It made me feel like yours — like someone who belonged in your world.

And the slide — the one you gave me that first day at camp — it’s still with me too. I couldn’t throw it away, even when I tried. I couldn’t even move it far from me. It sits silently near my mirror, a soft witness to everything that’s changed.

I wish you’d fought harder for us. I wish I had. Maybe we both did, in our own ways. But the truth is… distance wasn’t the only thing that killed us. It was silence, pride, fear, and maybe the universe itself — pulling us apart when all I ever wanted was to keep you close.

I’ve replayed our story in my head a thousand times. Every version ends the same: with you slipping away, with me crying alone, whispering your name into a pillow that doesn’t smell like you anymore.

But healing is strange. It doesn’t come in loud epiphanies. It comes in quiet moments — like the first time I laughed without you and didn’t feel guilty. The first time I heard a song we used to love and didn’t crumble. The first time I looked at your contact and didn’t text.

It’s waking up and realizing I can breathe without checking if you messaged. It’s accepting that some love stories don’t last forever — but they still mattered.

Because ours did. Every piece of it.

I loved you with everything I had. You made me feel safe in a world that had taken so much from me already. You made me feel seen when I was used to being invisible. You gave me firsts I’ll never forget — my first real kiss, my first real touch, my first heartbreak.

You were my miracle.

Even though you left, and even though we didn’t get the future we dreamed up together — the goofy house names, the pet chickens and turkeys, the family filled with laughter — I’ll always hold that version of us close. The us who dreamed, who hoped, who believed love could conquer all.

I’m not angry anymore. Just tired. Tired of loving someone who’s no longer here, of reaching out into a silence that doesn’t reach back. Tired of folding letters I’ll never send and crying over photos I should’ve deleted.

But I’m also proud.

Proud that I felt something so deeply. Proud that I loved without holding back. Proud that I survived the breaking.

And slowly, I’m learning that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It means thanking love for visiting, even if it didn’t stay. It means placing the band and the slide in a memory box, not a wound.

I don’t know if you think of me. I don’t know if your new world has space for the girl who called you “turkey” and turned curse words into sweetness. But I’ll always think of you when it rains and I feel the ache of missing someone who once made the world feel safe.

I’ll always think of you when I hear “oh sugar” and laugh because only we could turn pain into poetry.

This is not a goodbye. It’s just me, finally learning to live with the ache. To carry it like a soft bruise — painful, but not paralyzing. Visible, but healing.

Maybe one day, you’ll read this and remember how we loved. And maybe you’ll smile. Or cry. Or wish you had stayed.

But no matter what, I hope you’re happy. Really, truly happy.

Because despite everything, I loved you. I still do, in that quiet way that doesn’t beg to be noticed but never fades either.

You were my beginning. And maybe… just maybe… the end of you is the beginning of me.