The morning came like a whisper through my dreams, warm sunlight spilling onto my face through the thin curtain of ivy woven across the cottage window. I blinked, slow and heavy, still caught between the dream where she sang to me and the reality where silence lingered.
But even in that silence, I could feel her.
Her presence hung in the air—not as a memory, not as a ghost, but as something living. My fingers curled around the quilt she'd stitched with trembling hands so many moons ago, each patch a story we'd written together. I sat up slowly, the ache in my chest familiar but not as heavy. Something had shifted.
Something had healed.
I stepped outside barefoot, the dew cool against my skin. The meadow before me stretched wide, the blossoms stretching their heads toward the sun like they, too, had just woken. And in the middle of it all, the wind carried a hum. Faint, but mine. Ours.
A hum that had followed me through every ache, every sorrow, and now stood like a ribbon pulling me forward.
I found her song in everything.
In the way the trees swayed gently, like they remembered her laughter. In the rustle of petals brushing against each other like a quiet reunion. In the distant call of the river, where she once placed a flower behind my ear and told me I looked like spring.
And somehow, I didn't need to chase her anymore.
Because I had finally understood.
She had always been leading me here—not to a place, but to myself. To the version of me that had learned to love not through promises or magic, but through pain and choice. I had chosen her every day, even when she wasn't there to see it. Even when I was afraid. And now, standing in this quiet beauty, I knew—
She had chosen me too.
I returned to the cottage with a strange peace blooming inside me. The kind that didn't roar or sing but glowed like the last light before dusk. There, on the table, was the journal I'd begun in the early days. The one filled with pieces of her, pieces of me, and pages I was once too scared to write.
I opened it and found the first blank page.
And I began to write.
"You were the wind that taught me how to stand still. The ache that made my heart beat louder. The loss that became a guide. I looked for you in every leaf, every star, every tear—and still you chose me. Quietly. Without needing me to be anything more than who I was."
"I loved you when you vanished, when your voice became a melody without words. I loved you when I hated the pain you left behind. And now, I love you because of it. Because you gave me back to myself. You are not just my sweetest pain. You are my choice."
I signed my name at the bottom. Slowly. Fully.
No longer a girl waiting.
But someone who had loved and survived.
Later that day, I returned to the Glade. Not the one tangled in memory, but the one she and I had dreamt of remaking. The clearing was still wild, still stubborn with growth—but it was beautiful in its wildness. Like her. Like us.
I knelt by the firelight tree, its bark warm from the sun. A soft wind stirred the branches above me.
"I'm not afraid anymore," I whispered.
And for the first time, I meant it.
Just then, something shifted in the wind—a feeling, a warmth. A presence like breath against my cheek. I closed my eyes.
"I know," her voice echoed gently inside me.
It didn't come from the trees, or the river, or the wind. It came from within.
And I smiled.
Because the heart that had chosen me—through silence, sorrow, and sweetness—was still with me.
Always.