It had been years.

The salt air had long since faded from her hair. The warmth of sun-soaked pavement beneath bare feet. The heat of a stolen kiss behind the mall. All of it had blurred, softened, tucked away in a part of her memory she didn’t visit often.

She had told herself she was fine. That she had moved on. That what they had—what she felt—was nothing more than a summer thing. Temporary. Fleeting. Not real.

She said it enough times it almost started to feel true. A new job, new routines, a new name saved in her phone for the coffee shop guy who texted her good morning. It wasn’t love, but it was something. A version of peace, maybe.

And then today happened.

She wasn’t looking for them. God, of course she wasn’t. She was buying hand cream at the same mall where it had all started, not expecting the past to turn the corner and smile like no time had passed. But there they were.

Hair just a little different. Still wearing that dumb necklace she used to play with when you kissed her. Same smile. Same eyes. Same ache that pressed into her chest like the edge of a memory.

And just like that, the longing was back.

Not sharp like before. Not frantic. But quiet. Deep. Familiar in the way grief is when it lingers too long. She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if she should. Maybe you didn’t remember that summer like she did.

But then they looked at her, really looked. And smiled like they never aged. Like they they remembered.

"Augustine?" they asked.

For a second, she wasn't twenty-something with a job and a new life. She was sixteen again, meeting them behind the mall, heart caught somewhere between almost and not quite.

She almost laughed. Because she’d sworn she was over this. Because it had always been a borrowed kind of love.

But she nodded. And said softly, “Hey... It’s been a while.”