Childhood Echoes
Her lips curled up into a light, wistful smile, a gentle echo of a remembrance that would not leave him. "My childhood darling."
Her words seemed to float between them like a thin thread, light yet imperishable, tugging at his chest in unexpected ways. She had used the name only the heart could recall, and for an instant, all the defenses he had constructed around himself seemed to shake. The evening bore the fragrance of wet soil and faraway flowers, a silent observer to the closeness that neither wished to call out, but both felt to an intensity that words were too limited to express.
