She stood there, a few steps away from him, unable to move.
For several long minutes, she simply watched as his footsteps slowly carried him closer. There was something in his face—something she could neither read nor put into words. It was unfamiliar, almost impossible to understand. As if he had already made a decision that she was not brave enough to ask about.
Then he reached her.
Without saying a word, he leaned closer and pressed a soft kiss against her lips.
It lasted only a moment.
But somehow, that moment felt like the end of everything.
"I hope one day," he whispered, his voice painfully gentle, "you feel the same way I do right now."
Then he turned away.
And walked.
She remained where she was.
She watched him disappear, step by step, until his figure finally vanished from her sight. He never looked back—not even once.
And somehow, that hurt more than anything.
Deep inside, every part of her wanted to call him back.
She wanted to run after him. To hold him. To tell him not to leave.
But she did nothing.
She simply stood there and let him go.
And as the distance between them grew, something inside her seemed to break quietly—a loss without a funeral, a goodbye without the courage to be spoken.
She wanted to cry, but even her tears seemed unable to carry the weight of what she was feeling.
It was the kind of loss she knew she might never recover from in this lifetime.
Guilt settled heavily inside her.
She felt like a criminal for hurting someone who had loved her.
Like a selfish person for letting him walk away.
Like someone who had been given something precious and had only realized its value after losing it.
But she didn't understand herself.
She didn't know why she had let him go.
She only knew that, deep down, she was still waiting for him to turn around.
Even though she knew he never would.
And perhaps that was the cruelest part of all—
she wanted him to come back,
but she was the one who let him leave.