Everything around me once seemed beautiful.
Every moment felt sacred, like the quiet prayers of a monk in an old, forgotten sanctuary.
I spent seven years with her.
Seven long years filled with love, laughter, kisses, small arguments, and quiet reconciliations.
Seven years of warmth during cold nights and dreams that once felt eternal.
I will not deny it—I once intended to marry her.
I imagined asking for her hand from her retired father, a man who spent most of his days playing board games with old friends who had already reached the last station of life's long journey.
Yet somewhere deep inside me, doubt lived quietly.
In lonely moments, a whisper told me that nothing stays the same for seven years.
Life changes people.
Bills replace romance.
Rent replaces roses.
And slowly, foolish thoughts began to poison my mind.
I started imagining that my beloved had grown older.
That faint lines had appeared beneath her eyes.
That the years had gently bent her back.
While I… lost myself in meaningless distractions.
I flirted with passing women.
Admired beauty wherever I saw it.
Chased temporary desires that meant nothing.
Without realizing it, I betrayed the very person who had once held me during winter nights…
the same arms that had calmed the restless fire inside my chest.
Soon, I began avoiding her.
If I saw her walking toward me, I turned away.
Sometimes I hid behind walls or stepped into random houses just to escape her gaze.
Until one day, fate refused to let me run.
We met in front of the small neighborhood shop.
She looked straight into my eyes and asked calmly,
"When will you come to ask for my hand?"
My tongue froze.
My heart began to beat like an old clock echoing through a silent house at midnight.
Without thinking, I took a piece of Flash gum from her hand and placed it in my mouth.
I chewed slowly.
The taste was strange.
Sweet at first… then slightly bitter.
But there was something familiar about it—something my memory recognized before my mind could understand.
And in that moment, everything changed.
I became like a wandering dog chasing after her shadow.
Silent… desperate… unable to stay away.
I searched for her phone number everywhere—old notebooks, papers, forgotten corners of the house.
Then I remembered.
I was the one who had erased it.
I cursed my own hands.
I gathered the ashes of the photographs I had once burned, trying to rebuild what I had destroyed.
I even wrote her name again—this time like a tattoo across my shoulder.
Finally, I did what I should have done long ago.
I asked for her hand in marriage.
She had conditions.
I accepted every single one.
Now I lie beside my wife in quiet surrender…
ready to listen to her voice,
to follow her wishes,
and to rebuild the love I once foolishly tried to escape.