There are some evenings that carry memories in the wind.
Asha sat on the same old iron bench in the park, the one that still had faded green paint peeling from its arms. The sun was setting, staining the sky in orange and purple, but she wasn’t looking at the sky. She was looking at her phone.
Photographs.
Her thumb moved slowly across the screen — a birthday selfie, a blurry café picture, a candid moment where he was laughing at something she had said. She zoomed in on his smile like she was trying to memorize it all over again.
Maybe she didn’t understand what ex meant yet.
Maybe she didn’t understand what moving on meant either.
To her, the word felt like betrayal. Like erasing someone who once held your entire universe inside their hands.
She didn’t notice when someone sat beside her.
“Are you not able to move on?” a calm voice asked.
She looked up. A young man with soft eyes and a guitar case resting against his leg. His voice carried a strange gentleness, like he was used to turning pain into melodies.
“I’m sorry?” she asked.
He nodded toward her phone. “You’ve been staring at that picture for a while. I just wondered… are you not able to move on?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “How can someone just forget?” she replied, almost defensively. “How can you erase years of conversations, promises, dreams? Tell me — how does one forget someone who once felt like home?”
He didn’t interrupt.
She continued, her voice trembling now. “People say ‘move on’ like it’s a switch. Like you wake up one morning and suddenly it doesn’t hurt. But I still feel everything. The park, this bench, that tree… everything reminds me of him. So how am I supposed to forget?”
The singer smiled softly.
“Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting,” he said.
She looked at him, confused.
“It means letting go,” he continued. “There’s a difference. Forgetting is pretending something never happened. Letting go is accepting that it did — and choosing not to let it define what happens next.”
Asha stared at the ground.
He pointed toward a tall tree in front of them. Some leaves were golden, some already fallen.
“Life works like that tree,” he said. “Every season, it sheds its old leaves. Not because they weren’t beautiful. Not because they didn’t matter. But because if it keeps holding onto them, new leaves will never grow.”
She followed his gaze.
“The tree doesn’t hate the leaves it loses,” he added. “It just understands that clinging to them will stop it from living.”
Silence fell between them, but it wasn’t heavy anymore.
“So what do I do with the memories?” she asked quietly. “They don’t just disappear.”
“You keep them,” he said. “But you stop living inside them. You thank them for what they were. You let them become part of your roots, not chains around your branches.”
Asha exhaled slowly, as if she had been holding her breath for months.
“And what if I’m scared?” she whispered. “What if I never find something like that again?”
He chuckled lightly. “You won’t.”
Her heart skipped.
“You won’t find something like that again,” he repeated. “Because the next thing won’t be the same. It will be different. And different isn’t worse. It’s just… new.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“Were you able to move on?” she asked gently.
The question lingered in the air.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he picked up his guitar case and stood. A soft smile curved on his lips — the kind that hides stories.
“Take care of your seasons,” he said.
And he walked away.
Asha watched him disappear beyond the pathway, his figure fading into the evening crowd.
As for Aarav, he kept walking without looking back.
He believed in seasons.
He believed in trees shedding leaves.
He believed in new beginnings.
But deep inside, he knew something he hadn’t told her.
Sometimes, there is that one leaf.
That one stubborn, quiet, impossible leaf.
The one that refuses to dry.
The one that refuses to fall.
The one that keeps growing within you, no matter how many seasons pass.
And maybe moving on is not about cutting that leaf away.
Maybe it is about learning to live — even while it stays.
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