The Girl Across the Road
Their eyes met.
For a moment, she forgot about the rain.
She forgot where she was.
All she could see was him.
"Is it... really him?"
Her heart gave the smallest flutter.
Something she hadn't felt in years.
She stared at him, almost afraid that if she blinked, he would disappear.
But he was still there.
Standing beneath the shop's shade.
Looking at her.
And somehow, he looked different.
More mature.
The boy she remembered had been lanky, almost awkwardly thin, with a face that still carried something boyish.
But the man standing across the road—
He had grown into himself.
His shoulders were broader.
He looked bigger than the twenty-year-old boy she had known.
Older.
Stronger.
Different.
"He's changed."
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Then another thought came.
"Of course he has."
Four years was a long time.
People changed.
Lives changed.
Everything changed.
Except, apparently, the way her heart reacted to seeing him.
For one stupid second, she wanted to walk across that road.
She wanted to hear his voice.
She wanted to know how he had been.
She wanted to ask him everything she had once wanted to ask.
But then—
The memories came back.
The waiting.
The cancelled calls.
The nights she had stayed awake hoping he'd find time for her.
The arguments over things neither of them actually wanted to fight about.
The exhaustion.
The feeling of slowly becoming less important in his life.
And finally—
His decision.
The decision that had broken her more than she had ever admitted.
She had wanted them to work.
She had wanted to stay.
She had wanted to find another way.
But he had decided they couldn't keep doing this.
And she had eventually accepted it.
Or at least, she had learned how to live as if she had.
Her expression slowly changed.
The softness in her eyes disappeared.
"No."
She looked away.
The rain suddenly felt colder.
She focused on the road in front of her instead of the man standing across it.
She wasn't going to do this.
Not again.
She wasn't going to let one look bring four years of healing undone.
Still, she could feel his eyes on her.
She didn't look back.
Not for a while.
When she finally glanced from the corner of her eye, he was still looking at her.
For a few seconds, neither of them moved.
Then he slowly turned his face towards the road.
As if he had finally understood.
She let out a quiet breath.
"Good."
She didn't know whether she meant that he had looked away—
or that she had managed to.
The rain continued falling.
And between them stood a road.
But somehow, four years had never felt this close.
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