Gemotions

The park felt different. It was supposed to be their place, the place where they'd carved their initials into the ancient oak tree. Now, standing beneath its gnarled branches, everything felt foreign.

"Do you know why we are meeting?" he asked, his voice neutral. She had set up the reunion, after months of searching.

She stared, dumbfounded, at the man she had loved for so long. He wasn't the boy she had known. Her chest tightened. His eyes lacked the spark of recognition, the echo of shared history. The tree seemed to loom over her, a silent, disapproving witness to her utter disorientation.

She wanted to run.