Chapter 2: When he left without warning

It didn’t end the way I expected anything meaningful would end.

There was no proper goodbye. No long explanation. No moment where I could prepare myself for absence.

One day, the village simply shifted.

Whispers moved faster than answers. Something had happened between him and his uncle—something I was too young or too distant to fully understand. I only remember the tension, the silence, and then the packing.

He was leaving.

I saw him that day, but I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see him for years.

I stood there, trying to find the right words, but everything I wanted to say felt too heavy for my mouth. And maybe he felt it too, because the goodbye we shared was not spoken properly.

It was a look.

A pause.

A silence that lasted too long.

And then he was gone.

After that, the village changed in ways I couldn’t explain to anyone. The same roads felt longer. The same air felt emptier. Even the sounds of everyday life lost something I didn’t know they were borrowing from me.

I told myself I would forget him.

But forgetting is not something the heart agrees to easily.

Instead, I remembered everything.

Not the big moments—but the small ones. The way he laughed softly. The way he leaned slightly when he listened. The way I felt like I mattered when he looked at me.

And slowly, without permission, he stayed in my memory longer than I expected him to.