I came anyway

I heard you were gone from someone who didn’t know what you once meant to me. They said it flat, like it was weather. “He passed last week.” And suddenly, the air changed. I didn’t ask for details. I just drove. Quiet. Alone. Like we always said we never would be. At the service, they spoke of your laugh. Your stubbornness. The way you always showed up for people. And I smiled, because they never knew how often you showed up for me— before life pulled us apart by the seams. I sat in the back. No one knew who I was. Just a name lost in your middle chapters. But I remembered every line we never finished. I brought flowers. Nothing fancy. You hated fancy. You liked real. So I brought real. They said you were at peace. I hope you are. Because God knows, you fought enough battles that no one saw. And when everyone else left— family, friends, the ones who only knew the man you became— I stayed behind. Just for a moment. I laid my hand on the wood and whispered the goodbye I never got to give you. "You were never mine to keep, but you were mine to love. And I never stopped." I cried for the boy I knew. For the man I lost. For the lifetime we never had. Then I stood up, smoothed my dress, and walked away— not empty, just carrying one more memory in a heart that still makes room for you.