Chapter 10

It was dusk when he arrived at her final resting place. The cemetery was quiet, the only sound the rustling of leaves in the cold evening wind. He carried a bouquet of white lilies—her favorite. He knelt before her grave, tracing his fingers over the letters of her name, the name he had read a thousand times but never spoken with the love it deserved. "I see you now," he whispered. "And I love you." The words came easily, though they had eluded him for so long. He spoke to her as though she could hear, recounting everything he had learned, everything he had felt since reading her final letter. He told her of the regret that clawed at him, the emptiness he carried, the love that had bloomed too late but was real nonetheless. As he sat in the fading light, a sense of peace settled over him. Love had not been lost—not truly. It had lived in the spaces between her longing and his obliviousness, in the silent moments where she had watched him from afar. And now, it lived within him, burning quietly but fiercely, never to be ignored again. Before leaving, he placed her favorite book beside her grave. Inside, he had written his own letter—not one of farewell, but one of love. A love that had been unseen, unspoken, but never absent. As he walked away, the wind carried his whispered words into the night, merging with the echoes of the past. "I will never forget you."