There is a song that refuses to leave him.
Evermore.
It loops through the quiet corners of his mind,
a melody stitched into the spaces between breaths.
Sometimes he catches himself singing it aloud,
not because he remembers the words,
but because his heart already does.
He imagines himself a forgotten prince,
not trapped by towers or kingdoms,
but by an ancient spell only love could cast.
Not a curse meant to punish,
but one meant to reveal.
Every road,
every wrong turn,
every winter,
has somehow drifted him toward her.
His beautiful Belle.
Not flawless.
Not written in fairy-tale ink.
Simply human.
A woman learning love
the same way he is,
through silence,
through distance,
through questions no map could answer.
The miles have never frightened him.
The quiet has never convinced him to stop believing.
Even when doubt arrives wearing familiar clothes,
his soul remembers what his mind forgets.
There was a moment,
before the noise of the world returned,
when the universe became impossibly still.
It asked only one question.
"What do you seek?"
He didn't have to think.
He already knew.
Not perfection.
Not certainty.
Not a story without scars.
Her.
The answer escaped before fear could speak.
Then the silence smiled.
Almost like the stars themselves leaned a little closer,
gently brushing away his doubts,
reminding him that some promises are whispered long before they are lived.
And once again...
Evermore.
The chorus rises inside him,
not as an echo of longing,
but as the heartbeat of hope.
Because some songs are not written to end.
Some loves are not measured by distance.
Some souls simply recognize each other,
again and again,
evermore.
