The path no longer looked the same.
Each morning, when Elowen stepped beyond the orchard gate, the trail that once sang with Amara's laughter now felt quieter, lonelier. The wind still moved the branches, and the birds still called—but none of it reached her the way it used to.
She walked slower now.
As if every step taken without Amara made the forest more distant.
The sky above was a soft shade of ash, the kind that came before rain but never quite delivered it. Elowen didn't mind. There was comfort in the dullness of the weather. Bright days felt too loud.
She carried a basket over her arm—empty for now, but meant for gathering thyme and sweet moss, maybe a few bitter berries for jam. Tasks kept her grounded. Things she could hold, smell, taste.
Not like memories.
She reached the small bend in the path where the flat stone jutted out from under the moss—the same one Amara once tripped over, laughing so hard they both collapsed into the ferns.
Elowen knelt down.
The stone was still there. Of course it was. But it felt colder today.
"Amara," she whispered, not expecting an answer.
But the forest answered anyway, in its way. A bird call in the distance. The rustle of dry leaves tumbling past. Nothing extraordinary. Just a reminder: the world kept moving.
Even without her.
Elowen stood and continued down the path. Deeper into the woods. Past the old chestnut tree where ribbons once hung on its branches—now faded, brittle. She paused there too, brushing her fingers against the rough bark.
She hadn't noticed it before, but one of the ribbons—the pale yellow one—had something embroidered into the corner. Small, delicate letters:
Be brave enough to stay.
She didn't know who wrote it. Maybe it had been there for years. Or maybe Amara had tied it before she left.
The thought made her eyes sting.
But she didn't cry.
She couldn't. Not yet.
Instead, she walked on.
Past the glade with the lilac bloom. Past the hollow where deer sometimes grazed. Until she came to the fork.
The place they had chosen together the first time they dared leave the known trail. Left led to the firefly grove. Right curved toward the deeper woods—Amara's path.
Today, Elowen chose neither.
She sat down between them, knees pulled close, and let the wind wrap around her like a shawl.
For a long time, she said nothing.
But in her silence, her mind whispered memories.
Amara, humming while weaving wildflowers into Elowen's hair.
Amara, fingers ink-stained, grinning over a letter she never sent.
Amara, eyes full of something too big to name.
A part of Elowen wanted to forget. To press her heart into the shape of normal and let the days erase the ache.
But a deeper part—a quieter, braver part—knew better.
Love didn't vanish just because the person did.
It settled into the bones of things. Into the shape of a path, or the way the air smelled after rain. It stayed in the softness of moss, the echo of shared laughter, the wish carved into ribbon.
Elowen reached into her basket and pulled out her journal.
She opened to a blank page, touched the pen to it, and wrote:
Today, the path remembered her.
She paused, then added:
So did I.
A single drop of rain fell onto the page, blurring the ink into a soft bloom. Then another. And another.
Elowen tilted her face to the sky and let the rain fall. It was cool and clean, and it washed away the silence clinging to her skin.
She didn't run for cover.
She stayed.
She stayed until the forest was slick and humming, until the trees dripped silver and her dress clung to her legs. She stayed until her breath turned into mist, and her heart finally let go of the ache it had been carrying since Amara left.
And when she finally stood and turned back toward home, she felt something she hadn't felt in days.
Not joy.
Not yet.
But peace.
The path still didn't feel right without Amara.
But it no longer felt unbearable.
As she walked, the ribbon on the chestnut tree fluttered again.
Be brave enough to stay.
Elowen reached out and touched it once more, then whispered beneath her breath:
"I'm trying."
She didn't take the ribbon. She left it there—for the wind, for herself, for the girl who would return one day.
Because somewhere in the deeper woods, on a path they hadn't yet walked together, Amara was out there. Finding her pieces. Following the glow.
And Elowen?
Elowen would be here when she came home.
Waiting.
Whole in her own way.
And full of a quiet, stubborn kind of love.