Then her expression softened, carrying stories I hadn’t lived but somehow helped shape. “He never took it off for years,” she said gently. “He told me about a girl who made him believe in kindness again.” Hearing it shattered something inside me — a quiet ache I didn’t know I’d been carrying. I whispered that I never meant to intrude on his life, only to let him go with a piece of comfort. She reached across the table and smiled, two paths crossing over a single memory. Sometimes the love we give doesn’t stay with us — it becomes part of