I almost forgot how you felt

I saw you before you saw me. Still walk the same. Still carry the world like it owes you something. And just like that— a flood of years came rushing through a single glance. We hugged. God, that hug. Longer than polite, shorter than what I needed. We sat, coffee between us like a buffer, but your eyes still knew too much. You made me laugh. Too easily. Like my body remembered what my heart wasn’t allowed to. We danced around the past, like we could both pretend we didn’t leave pieces of ourselves in the wreckage of “us.” I told you about my kids. You nodded like you were proud— but I felt the pause. That space where your name could’ve lived if life had gone differently. I didn’t cry. Not there. Not then. But when I left… when I turned the corner, when the air got too quiet again— I felt it. The weight. The pull. The memory of loving someone who once knew every version of me and still chose to stay— until we didn’t. You’re older now. So am I. But the wound? It’s aged gracefully. It doesn’t scream. It just aches when it rains or when I see you smile. I didn’t say what I wanted to. Didn’t ask if you still think of me when that one song plays. I just smiled. And I walked away. Then I sat in my car, hand on the steering wheel, tears in my throat, and whispered to no one— “He still feels like home… and I still know better.”