Chapter 1 That Sunset Looked Like Him
I was just staring at the sunset that evening, the sky painted in golden orange with clouds floating like memories—soft, slow, and aching. The wind brushed against my cheeks the same way he used to, though he never really did. And then I saw someone… someone like him Tall. The same careless hairstyle.
And in that second— I wasn’t by the ocean anymore, I was somewhere in the past, In a moment that never fully left me.
I was eleven. Fifth grade. The age where love isn’t love yet—but something purer, lighter, nameless. We were in the same class. He was the boy who never spoke much, but smiled like he knew the secret to something important. And my heart… my little silly heart kept skipping.
I remember writing his name in the corner of my notebook, As if just the ink knew what my lips couldn’t say.
I don’t know when it began. Maybe it was the way he held the cricket bat like a warrior, or maybe it was the way he helped a classmate pick up spilled pencils without a word.
He never knew. Or maybe he did. That’s the thing about young love, It doesn’t ask for permission, It just quietly grows
I blinked again. The sun dipped lower. That boy was gone. Maybe he wasn’t him after all. But something about that moment cracked open a part of me I had stitched shut. A flashback reeled again...
