The change was quiet.

Calls became shorter. Her replies arrived hours later, colder, like someone else had written them. She stopped coming to the park. I still brought my book — but I stopped reading.

“I just need a little space,” she said one night.

I gave her the whole galaxy.

And somehow, she still disappeared.

There was no fight. No screaming. Just another Tuesday, another park bench. She showed up, eyes dimmer than before.

“I think I loved the idea of you,” she whispered.

That hurt more than anything else could have. Not because she didn’t love me, but because maybe she was right. Maybe she had loved the version of me she built in her head — and I had done the same with her.

She left. I didn’t try to stop her.

The world didn’t pause. The coffee still brewed badly. The park still held its breath. Life moved like it always had, only now there was a silence in my days where her voice used to live.

Weeks later, I found her sketchbook buried under a hoodie she left behind. The last page was a pencil drawing: a boy sitting on a bench, staring at a girl. No faces. No names. Just the outline of a memory.

Sometimes love doesn’t leave with a bang. Sometimes it walks out like it was never really yours — just borrowed for a little while.

But even now, when I sit on that bench and the wind changes, I look up.

Just in case.

— Yours, briefly.