"It came back, the way certain memories do. I was staying at his place that summer. He didn’t say much. Just pointed at the tea and went back to his reading. I sat quietly at the kitchen table, peeling a fruit I didn’t recognize, its bitter rind under my fingernails, fresh in a way that made my mouth ache. Reaching over the sink, I brushed against the basil on the windowsill, its scent drifting through the room. A plant neither of us watered, yet somehow it held on. Later we walked through the city, shadows long, streets half-awake. Concrete steamed under a too-early sun. Back then, time moved slower, not enough to change anything. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to leave. He knew, but never asked me to stay."
