Jace didn't try to rush anything.
Maybe that's why it was easy to be around him.
He didn't press, didn't dig, didn't try to fix anything. He just showed up — in grocery runs, in weekend brunches, in the quiet moments when I forgot I was supposed to be guarding my heart.
He wasn't trying to replace anyone.
He was just there.
Sometimes that's the bravest thing a person can do.
We spent more time together in the weeks that followed — walks around the town plaza, dinners at small restaurants, shared playlists over coffee.
He made me laugh without trying.
He knew when to hold the silence and when to fill it.
He remembered the kind of bread I liked. That I didn't like onions in my pancit. That I secretly still watched corny teleseryes when I couldn't sleep.
It didn't feel like fireworks.
It felt like sunlight through curtains.
Not loud. But warm. Constant. Healing.
One afternoon, we sat under a mango tree at the edge of a park. My sketchpad was on my lap, and his head was tilted toward the sky.
"I like this," he said.
"What?"
"You. Existing like this."
I looked at him, half-smiling.
"You make it sound like I just learned how."
"Maybe you did."
That made me pause.
He wasn't wrong.
That night, I dreamed of Elián again.
He wasn't doing anything remarkable. Just sitting beside, me in a garden I didn't recognize, reading a letter in his hands — one I must've written in a different life.
He didn't look up.
Didn't speak.
But his silence felt like a scream I couldn't wake from.
When I opened my eyes, it was almost 4 a.m.
I didn't cry. I just lay still, letting the quiet remind me I was no longer where I used to be.
That I had left.
That he had let me.
Jace never asked about the dreams.
But I think he knew.
Some mornings, he would bring Taho and not say anything about the dark circles under my eyes. Some nights, he would call just to talk about nothing until my voice felt steady again.
And still — he never asked.
He didn't demand a space that wasn't yet his.
He just carved one, gently.
And I found myself resting there more often than I expected.
One Saturday, we ended up at a small beach two hours away. He drove. I sang along to old songs. The wind tangled my hair, and he laughed when it hit his face like a storm.
By late afternoon, we were barefoot in the sand, watching the tide pull the day away.
"I don't know what this is," I said suddenly. "You and me."
He didn't flinch.
"Me neither," he said. "But it's something. Right?"
I nodded.
"It feels like peace."
He looked at me for a long time. Not like he was trying to figure me out — but like he already had and was simply grateful I was still here.
"You don't have to give me all of you," he said. "Just whatever part feels safe."
That was the moment I realized:
I could love again.
Maybe not the same way. Not the wildfire, not the haunting.
But maybe something softer.
Something that doesn't burn.
That night, I dreamed again.
Not of Elián.
Not even of Jace.
Just me — sitting under a cherry blossom tree, writing a letter I didn't finish.
When I woke up, I had no idea what I was trying to say in the dream.
But for once, I didn't feel like I needed to.
Some ghosts don't ask to be forgotten.
They only ask to be remembered gently.
And maybe…
That was enough