Chapter 17: The Years That Went Quiet

Seven years.

It sounds like a long time, but somehow it doesn’t feel long at all. It feels like the space between one heartbeat and the next—long enough to stretch into emptiness, short enough to leave scars.

I’m in my junior year of college now. The campus is busy with students rushing between classes, clubs calling them to meetings, part-time jobs waiting to be done. Everyone seems so alive, so full of movement. And yet, somewhere deep inside, I’ve been standing still for seven years.

Hanami. Her name comes unbidden, like the ghost of a melody I can’t forget. I’ve thought of her every season, every night, every moment when I look at the sky and remember how she used to listen to me talk about stars. Sometimes I can almost hear her voice, soft and quiet, carrying across the years, saying nothing and everything at the same time.

I keep our letters in a drawer, one of those old wooden ones I found in a thrift store years ago. I’ve never opened it in a long time. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m afraid. Afraid that if I read them again, the memories will suffocate me with what I never said and what she never could. The letters smell faintly of ink and paper, a scent that brings both warmth and ache.

And yet, even untouched, they remind me. Remind me of a time when the world felt simpler, when winter snow could cover the cracks in our hearts and make everything possible. Now, snow doesn’t feel the same. Now, the world moves fast, and I move slower, trapped by memories I cannot escape.

Hanami. I don’t know what she does these days. I hear that she’s in art school, that her work is praised in small galleries. I imagine her in a sunlit studio, her hair falling over her sketchbook as she draws with the same gentle focus I once envied. I imagine her smiling quietly at a canvas, her hand moving with delicate precision, and I feel a pang in my chest so sharp I nearly stand up just to shake it off.

She keeps one photo tucked in her sketchbook. I don’t know which one, and I don’t know why she keeps it. Perhaps it’s the first one we ever took together, hands brushing over books in the library. Perhaps it’s a snow-dusted window she captured herself. I like to imagine it’s her smile, captured in a moment she refuses to let go of, just as I refuse to let go of her.

We don’t block each other. We don’t delete old numbers. We don’t erase memories. But we never reach out either. Seven years of silence isn’t quiet—it’s loud in the way it echoes inside, making every simple message, every small thought of her, a tidal wave that crashes against a wall of fear and pride.

Sometimes I lie in my dorm at night, staring at the ceiling, phone clutched in my hand. I think about sending her a message. Something simple. Something safe. “How are you?” “Are you happy?” But then I imagine her reading it. I imagine her folding her hands, looking down at the screen, and walking away. And I can’t do it. I can’t risk disturbing the fragile balance of what we’ve built in silence.

So I lie there instead. Letting my thoughts wander across the years. Wondering if she ever thinks of me the same way. Wondering if the spaces between words became so wide that neither of us could bridge them anymore.

I see other people around me. Friends, classmates, juniors in my club. They talk, laugh, argue, live. I join in sometimes, but I always feel slightly removed, slightly hollow. They don’t know that every compliment I receive, every small victory I achieve, carries a shadow. A shadow of a girl I cannot speak to, a girl who is far away, who may never come back, yet is always present in the quiet spaces of my heart.

And Hanami… I imagine her sitting in her studio, sunlight falling on her hair, sketching furiously to keep herself occupied, to keep the ache of these years from swallowing her. Perhaps she remembers me sometimes, when she sees a small snowflake pattern in a drawing or when the wind blows just right. Perhaps she whispers my name to herself and moves on, pretending she is free.

Seven years.

Not blocked, not forgotten, not healed.

Just… quiet.

The world moves. Classes end, seasons pass, cherry blossoms bloom and fall. New people enter our lives. But for me, for her, some things remain suspended. A single drawer of letters. A tucked-away photograph. Memories that refuse to bend to time.

And I lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if we’ll ever speak again.

I don’t know. Maybe we never will.

But in the silence, I hear her. Always.

And somehow, that is enough to keep me going, even when it hurts.