Sharper than Memory

I used to believe time could dull anything.

Wounds. Memories. Even the way someone's name can tighten your chest from the inside out.

Two years should have been enough.
Two years to forget the sound of a laugh I knew by heart.
Two years to bury the questions that kept me awake.
Two years to stitch myself back together after everything fell apart.

But time is a liar.
And memories-
Memories have edges sharper than the day they were made.

I came back hoping the past would stay where I left it.
Hoping the people I once loved would have moved on.
Hoping I would have moved on.

Instead, I walked straight into everything I ran from-
the best friends I abandoned,
the grief I never spoke out loud,
and him.

Atharv Thakur.

The boy I once trusted with all the soft, fragile parts of me.
Or maybe... the boy whose truth I never stayed long enough to hear.

Now our worlds collide again, in hallways that echo with old versions of us, in classrooms where we pretend we're strangers, in moments where his eyes say everything we swore we'd forget.

Maybe this is fate.
Maybe this is punishment.
Maybe this is the universe forcing me to face the truth I've avoided for far too long.

But whatever it is, one thing is painfully, brutally clear:

Some memories don't fade.
Some people don't stay gone.
And some stories begin again-
sharper, deeper, and far more dangerous the second time around.