I loved her very much. (still loving her, using the past tense won’t kill the love inside me)
Not in a dramatic, lightning-strike way. Not the kind that demands witnesses.
I loved her in quieter places—where nothing needed to be proven.
I loved her because when I hugged her, my body smelled wonderful afterward.
Which makes no sense.
And yet, it was always true.
There were no arms around me in the ordinary way. Still, something happened in the multiverse. Something unmistakable. Not only in my thoughts—those were always trying to stay reasonable—but first in my body, which has never been particularly interested in reason.
After being with her, I carried a trace of something that wasn’t mine. As if closeness could beams without distance. As if presence did not require weight.
The scent wasn’t perfume, my body was produced that without did not look like my scent. It couldn’t have been. It was warmer than that. More hot. More familiar. Not tied to memory or safety or virtual, yet somehow borrowing from all three. I would notice it hours later—on my sleeve, near my collarbone or at my neck—and stop whatever version of strength I had planned to wear that day.
She had not a way of making attention feel precise. When she focused on me or what i was saying, nothing else competed. She laughed fully, even when no one was watching. She listened as if time had slowed specifically for that purpose. When she spoke, her words reached places usually reserved for only her to touch.
I told myself it didn’t matter. That people were projecting. That bodies responded to suggestions, that it was a telepathic love felt from opposite ends of the world. That meaning emerged when loneliness was given enough substance.
But love has never cared for explanations that sound responsible.
I loved how she lingered over my words. I loved the way she said my name—unhurried, as if it mattered where it landed. I loved how being seen by her adjusted me, like a clock finally agreeing with itself.
And yes, I loved her because afterward, I felt like someone who belonged somewhere—even if that place had no coordinates.
The scent stayed. Long after closeness turned into memory. Long after we mastered the careful art of letting go without fully vanishing. Sometimes that scent still returns—sudden, uninvited, unmistakable. Maybe when I missed her or when I wanted to be with her again.
And every time it does, my body remembers what my mind already knows:
Some loves do not need explanations.
Some loves leave proof.
Even if some loves have ended, they never truly end!
