Falling Into You Again

Some memories don't fade not because they were important.
They fade because they were never completed.

There are goodbyes that are spoken, goodbyes that are understood, and then there are the worst kind- the ones that never happened at all. Just an ordinary night, a half-finished game, laughter still hanging in the air... and then morning comes, and someone is simply gone.

Not moved. Not replaced. Not lost in the usual sense.
Just erased from reach.

For a six-year-old boy, that kind of disappearance doesn't register as "loss" immediately. It registers as confusion. Then waiting. Then habit. Then a strange silence that grows into personality itself.
And sometimes, that child grows up- but the silence doesn't.
It just learns to walk beside him.