Elia stared at her gallery for hours.
There were 147 photos of Kael.
Some were blurry. Some were perfect.
Some were screenshots of their late-night calls.
Some were selfies from the café, the rooftop, the bookstore where he pretended to like poetry just to impress her.
She didn't know where to start.
She tapped one. Held it.
"Delete?" her phone asked.
Her thumb hovered.
Then she backed out.
It wasn't just a photo.
It was a timestamp.
A moment that once felt like forever.
She tried again.
This time, she deleted five.
The ones where he was smiling too much.
The ones where she looked too happy.
But the pain didn't go away.
It just shifted.
She opened their chat.
Still there.
Still full of voice notes, playlists, memes, and half-finished conversations.
She scrolled to the beginning.
The first "hey."
The first "goodnight, Star Girl."
The first "I made this song for you."
She wanted to delete it all.
But she couldn't.
Because memories don't live in phones.
They live in muscle.
In the way her fingers still typed his name by accident.
In the way her heart still paused when she heard his ringtone.
She tried archiving the chat.
Then unarchived it five minutes later.
She tried deleting the playlist.
Then saved it under a new name: Almost.
She tried sketching someone else.
But every face turned into his.
Her stepmom noticed.
"You okay?" she asked gently.
Elia nodded.
"I'm just cleaning up."
But it wasn't cleanup.
It was grief.
Because deleting photos doesn't delete the ache.
It doesn't erase the way he made her laugh.
It doesn't undo the way he made her feel seen.
She cried that night.
Not because he was gone.
But because he was still everywhere.
In her gallery.
In her sketches.
In her playlists.
In her silence.
She whispered, "I wish I could forget."
But her heart whispered back, "You don't."
Because some memories aren't meant to be deleted.
They're meant to be survived.