The Ghost of What We Were
She walked into the café wearing your favorite perfume, and suddenly I was 22 again, sitting on your dorm bed while you played guitar. I almost said your name before realizing it wasn’t you. Grief is strange that way—it latches onto scents, songs, the way sunlight hits a wall. They tell you time heals, but maybe it just teaches you to carry the wound quietly. I ordered your usual—black coffee, no sugar—and left it on the counter for the next stranger. Some ghosts don’t haunt; they remind you that you once felt something deeply enough to miss it.