Some memories stay sharp no matter how much time passes. Not because they were loud or dramatic, but because they lived in silence. In glances. In the way his hand almost reached for mine but didn’t. In the way we both pretended not to notice.

That’s how we kept it safe. We protected the moment by not naming it. We told ourselves it wasn’t real so we wouldn’t have to grieve it later. But the body remembers what the mind tries to erase. I still catch the scent of his cologne in a crowd and feel my breath hitch like it used to when he walked into a room. That’s not nostalgia. That’s unfinished.

It wasn’t about needing a label or even a future. It was about how time slowed down when we shared space. About the electricity in restraint. The way nothing was said, but everything was felt. And I think that’s why it stayed with me. Because it never got ruined by reality. It never had the chance to fall apart.

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The ache lives in the what-ifs, in the way I’ve never been able to replicate that kind of stillness since. There was something holy about how we held back. About how we let it exist without touching it. And maybe that was love in its quietest form.

Now I’m older. I understand that just because something isn’t spoken doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And just because we never called it love doesn’t mean it wasn’t.

It was real. It still is. Every time I smell that cologne in a crowd and forget how to breathe.