What will he say when they meet again?

More than a decade has passed. He wonders whether she will hear those years in his voice… or whether, to her, it will simply be a familiar voice grown older. Perhaps even a voice she no longer quite recognises.

Will he tell her how often he has wanted to speak to her? How an ordinary day still leaves him with something he wishes she knew… a small happiness, a difficult evening, something that would once have made her laugh. How he has carried entire conversations through the years, knowing her part only as he remembers it.

And will he tell her what stopped him, each time?

A promise to let her seek happiness along the path she chose… even if it meant no longer having a place in her life.

He has returned to those words so often that he no longer remembers how they sounded that day, only what they asked of him. He wanted her happiness. He gave his word. And whenever he reached for a way to reach her, the promise held his hand still.

Some days, he has felt imprisoned between what he feels and what he believes is right. There has been no one to argue with, no one keeping watch. Only her wish, and his unwillingness to break the promise he made to her.

Yet when he imagines meeting her, he imagines telling her everything. He imagines her listening, quietly, as though somewhere she has been waiting to understand.

Then comes the thought he cannot soften: why should she have to listen? Why should she think of him at all, or keep their memories close? Who is he to her now? Have the smallest details, still so vivid to him, long since faded for her?

She has a place in his daily life without being there. But what place does he have in hers? Is he an occasional memory, a name she doesn’t even remember, someone she once knew and was relieved to leave? Could the sight of him awaken something tender… or only the discomfort of coming across that she put down years ago?

He does not know what remains of him in her thoughts. That is what hurts beneath all the other hurt.

Perhaps she has wondered, once or twice, what might have been. Perhaps some small, unspoken “what if” has visited her too. He cannot help hoping so. But he knows how easily hope borrows another person’s silence and makes it say what the heart needs to hear. She has a world of her own now, with its own tenderness, promises, and belonging.

Perhaps the truth is simply that the thought has never occurred to her. Perhaps he, and everything they once were, have become a distant memory she no longer returns to.

Why should it be otherwise, merely because it is otherwise for him? Somewhere within, a quiet voice reminds him that she chose a life away from him. He was not the one she chose. Perhaps his longing means nothing in her world, like a passing breeze she scarcely notices, while he feels every stirring of it.

Perhaps that is the truth. He may never fully make peace with it. But he can still keep the promise he made to her.

If they meet again, will he be able to look at her without searching her face for answers to all those years?

Perhaps she will ask, “How have you been?”

And for a moment, he will have to choose how much of the truth can fit inside an ordinary greeting.

He may smile. He may say, “It’s good to see you.”

And he will mean it… even as he waits to discover whether it is good for her to see him too.