Tales Of The Heart | (G)i-dle

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐘𝐨𝐮

"Comparisons are easily done once you've had a taste of perfection..."

They say time heals. But no one warns you about the kind of wound that doesn't bleed - the quiet kind that just sits beneath your ribs.

I sit across from June. He's talking about the guest list. His hand finds mine, and it's soft. Steady. Good.

But when he touches me...

"Like an apple hanging from a tree, I picked the ripest one, I still got the seed..."

...I remember Soyeon.

Soyeon was chaos in its most beautiful form. Her laugh could pull me out of any storm. She never tried to dim herself for anyone. That scared me. And I loved her for it.

We made art out of late-night kitchen dances and whispered promises in the dark. She made me feel like the world didn't need permission to love.

But the world did. My world did. And I wasn't brave enough.

I left. On a Tuesday. Quietly.

"Cause when I'm with him, I am thinking of you..."

June doesn't know. About the way I still dream in Soyeon's colors. How I still keep her sweater in a box beneath my bed.

He doesn't ask why I sometimes pause when he kisses me.

He probably thinks it's nerves.

It's memory.

"I wish that I was looking into your eyes..."

Sometimes, I wonder if Soyeon ever looked back. If she ever missed me. If she ever hated me a little for not staying.

I like to think she understood. That she forgave me in a way I still haven't forgiven myself.

But the truth is: I will marry June. I will build a life. I will smile. I will mean it.

But somewhere deep, I will always ache for the girl with ink-stained fingers who made me feel like art.

"Cause when I'm with him, I am thinking of you..."

-xXx-

SOYEON

"You're like an Indian summer in the middle of winter-like a hard candy with a surprise center."

I don't talk about her anymore.

Not because I don't think of her. But because saying her name feels like opening a wound I worked too long to close.

She was my first real love. Not the soft kind. The wildfire kind. The kind that burns everything and leaves behind something sacred.

She left on a Tuesday. No storm, no shouts - just silence.

I didn't ask her to stay. I loved her too much to trap her.

"How do I get better once I've had the best?"

I see her sometimes. Not really. In photos. With a new guy- June, I think. A safe name. A safe smile.

They look happy.

And I want that to be enough.

But late at night, when the tea's gone cold and the city goes quiet, I think of her. Of that smile she used to give only me. Of the way she'd trace constellations on my skin with her fingers.

"He kissed my lips, I taste your mouth..."

They say write it out, so I did. Poems in the backs of notebooks. Her name scribbled in margins. One postcard I sent:

"I saw a girl who looked like you today. It still hurts."

I never signed it. Just an S. She'd know.

"You said move on, where do I go? I guess second best is all I will know..."

I tried to love again. But I think a part of me is still sitting on the floor of my apartment, watching her walk away.

Still hoping she turns back.

Still whispering...

"Cause when he's around, I am thinking of you."