I’ve always felt that somewhere deep inside, there’s an echo I can’t quite silence—a subtle void left by the loss of a cherished childhood friend. It’s not a wound that bleeds, but one that seeps quietly through the cracks of my day. That missing piece has rendered my thoughts tangled and uncertain, a puzzle I’ve yet to solve. Still, I’ve clung to hope that forging new connections might help me decipher these cryptic feelings. And so, despite the tender memories I carry, I set out to welcome friendship in its many forms.
It was a late October afternoon when I first saw Gabriel. The campus was awash with autumn’s fragile beauty: burnt orange leaves scattered like whispered secrets on the sidewalks, and a chill in the air that hinted at both endings and beginnings. I had just emerged from a
