I barely recognized myself these days.
Not because I had changed dramatically on the outside—but because something in me had shifted. The pain didn't sit on the surface anymore. It had moved deeper, quieter. Like a scar that still aches when it rains, but no longer bleeds.
I stood in front of the mirror one morning, toothbrush in hand, just staring.
My eyes looked older. Not tired—just… weathered. As if they had seen something no one else could understand.
And maybe they had.
I thought of you, Yuna.
I wondered if I looked more like you now. If the softness in my expression—the quiet strength I had started to feel—was something I borrowed from you.
I touched the edge of the mirror. My reflection did the same.
Who was this girl?
She wasn't the same one who once waited by her phone for your texts.
Not the one who shyly held your hand for the first time on a winter night.
Not the one who had to learn to breathe through the weight of goodbye.
This girl… she had endured.
She had cried and painted and written and walked alone through seasons of loss.
She had learned how to love someone she could no longer hold.
She had lived through grief—and still chose to keep living.
I didn't hate her anymore.
For a long time, I did.
I hated her for not saying more.
For not seeing the signs.
For surviving when you didn't.
But standing there in the mirror, I saw you in her eyes.
You wouldn't have wanted her to carry shame.
You would have said, *"You loved me, and that was enough."*
You would have smiled, brushed the hair from my face, and told me to keep going.
So I did.
I took one last look at the girl in the mirror—and for the first time, I smiled back.
I still didn't have all the answers. I still missed you in ways I couldn't describe.
But I was here.
Breathing.
Creating.
Becoming.
And in all of that, Yuna—you still lived.
In every quiet moment.
In every reflection.
In every step I took forward, even when I wasn't sure how.
—