They say time heals everything.
But what they don't say is this:
Time doesn't always take the pain away.
Sometimes, it just teaches you how to live with it — like an old scar that doesn't hurt, but itches every now and then when it rains.
It had been months since we passed out of school. The corridors that once echoed with laughter and crushed-paper fights had gone silent. My uniform now hung in the back of my closet, untouched, like a memory too fragile to fold.
I'd moved on—at least that's what I told myself.
New routine. New college. New people.
But love doesn't pack its bags and leave with you.
It lingers… like perfume on the last letter you forgot to throw away.
I often found myself staring out the window during long lectures, zoning out in crowded metros, or scrolling past reels with a soft piano background and thinking of her. Not because I hadn't accepted the truth.
But because she was never just a chapter—
She was the book that changed how I read everything else.
There are people you fall in love with. And then there are people who teach you how to love—
softly, selflessly, silently.
She taught me that.
I remember how I used to look at her like the world shrank down to her eyes.
And even now, when people ask about "my first love," I don't name her.
I just smile and say—
"She was winter."
"Cold. Beautiful. And unforgettable."
I kept a photo of us. Not to dwell on it, but to remind myself—
that once, even the shyest version of me had the courage to love someone that deeply. It gave me hope. That maybe love wasn't meant to last forever.
Maybe it was meant to shape us, even if only for a season.
One night, alone on the rooftop under a sky full of quiet stars, I whispered to the wind:
"I never stopped caring… I just stopped expecting."
And that was the difference.
I didn't want her back. I just wanted her to know…
that she'll always be a part of who I became.
I don't text her anymore.
I don't wait for her stories to show up.
I don't revisit the old conversations.
But once in a while, when the air gets cold, and the world slows down,
I still smile — because in one forgotten winter…
I had met my whole world.
And maybe…
that was enough.
"Some winters don't end. They just learn to live inside you."