They didn't walk side by side.
Not yet.
There was a distance between them.
Not far, but enough.
Enough to fit a story they weren't ready to retell.
She wrote with her fingertip.
No pen.
No pressure.
Just quiet movement across the white.
Each stroke curled into a thread,
and each thread spun into a memory
that refused to fully form.
He watched, unsure if he belonged in what she wrote.
"Do you know me?" he asked.
She stopped mid-stroke.
The thread she was drawing frayed at the edges.
"I did," she said.
"But I promised not to rush you."
He looked at the broken thread.
At the space between them.
At her.
"...Then I'll earn it back," he said, "one memory at a time."
She smiled—small and tired,
the way someone does when hope is something old and familiar.
And she kept writing.