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Before anything had a name, there was only summer.
The kind that clung to skin—sticky afternoons where the air felt like melted sugar and asphalt, and every breath tasted like something sweet and fleeting.
Somewhere in the distance, a tricycle passed by too slowly, its engine dragging through heat like it didn’t want to move either. The world felt paused. Waiting. Like it knew something was about to end even before it began.
And in the middle of it all—Gianni and Shaira.
It always started the same way.
A knock on the gate.
“Gian!” Shai’s voice, already laughing before she even saw her.
Gianni would open the door like she had been waiting the entire time, even if she wasn’t.
“Ang aga mo,” she’d say, leaning against the frame. “Hindi ka ba napapagod?”
Shai would just roll her eyes, holding up a plastic bag of snacks like it was proof of her existence.
“Libre mo ‘ko tubig, then pwede na ako mapagod.”
“Si buraot na naman,” Gianni would mutter, but she was already moving inside.
It was routine. Effortless. Like breathing.
Like they had always been like this.
Somewhere along the street, someone would always say it.
“Uy, sila na ba?”
Or worse—
“Ang sweet nila. Bagay talaga sila, ‘no?”
Gianni and Shaira never answered properly.
Shaira would just laugh, loud and easy, like it was a joke she had heard too many times.
“Grabe kayo,” she’d say. “Friends lang kami.”
Friend.
The word always landed softer than it should have.
Gianni never corrected it either.
She would just smile a little, shove her hands in her pockets, and look away like the sky suddenly became more interesting than the question.
But neither of them ever stepped away from each other.
Not even once.
Their summers were made of fragments.
Sticky fingers from cheap candy bought at the sari-sari store.
Shared earbuds tangled between them, one side always falling out because Shaira moved too much when she laughed.
Running barefoot across warm pavement just because someone dared the other to race home.
Shai screaming, “Gian, bilis! Panalo ako!”
Gianni, breathless, shouting back, “Kadayaan, ambilis mo tumakbo!”
And then both of them collapsing on the sidewalk anyway, laughing like they didn’t just lose something they weren’t even trying to win.
There were quieter moments too.
The ones no one else noticed.
Shaira sitting on Gianni’s roof, legs dangling over the edge, chewing strawberry candy too slowly like she was trying to make it last longer than it should.
Gianni lying beside her, one arm behind her head, staring at nothing.
“Ang init,” she’d complain.
“Eh kasi summer,” she’d reply.
“Wow, genius ah.”
“Salamat.”
Silence would follow, but it was never empty.
It was full of everything they didn’t say.
One afternoon, someone had laughed too loudly near them.
“Grabe, kayo talaga. Parang kayo na eh.”
Shai had almost choked on her drink.
“Ha? Hindi ah,” she said too quickly. “Weird mo.”
Gianni just smiled again, softer this time.
But later, when they were alone, she nudged her.
“Ang kulit nila, ‘no?”
Gianni hummed. “Hayaan mo na.”
A pause.
Then Shai, quieter—
“Pero… hindi naman weird, diba?”
Gianni turned her head slightly.
For a moment, she looked like she wanted to say something honest.
Instead, she only said, “Hindi naman.”
And that was all.
They never noticed how close they always stood.
How Shai always leaned toward her when she talked.
How Gianni always slowed her steps so she wouldn’t walk ahead.
How their names always came together in other people’s sentences like it was already decided.
Gianni and Shaira
Shai and Gian.
Always together.
Always almost.
And now, this summer felt different.
Not in a way that screamed or demanded attention.
But in the quiet way endings usually begin.
Like the air was already learning how to let go.
Like something in them already knew this was the last time they would not know what they were.
And neither of them said it out loud, but both of them felt it the moment it began.
It started with a feeling she couldn’t quite name.
Not excitement. Not sadness.
Something quieter, like the space between two heartbeats that lasted just a little too long.
Shai noticed it the moment she stepped out of their house that morning, the sun already heavy on the pavement like it had been there for hours waiting for her. Her shoes scraped lightly against the ground as she walked, one hand tucked in her pocket, the other holding her phone she didn’t really need to check.
Because she already knew where she was going.
She always did.
Gian was already outside their usual spot.
Leaning against the gate like she had been there for a while, one foot tapping lightly against the concrete. Hair slightly messy, shirt loose, like she had just rolled out of bed but still managed to look like she belonged in the warmth of the morning.
When she saw Shai, she lifted her chin.
“Ang tagal mo,” she said immediately.
Shai rolled her eyes. “Ikaw nga ‘tong maaga.”
Gianni smirked. “Excuses.”
Shai walked closer and lightly bumped her shoulder on purpose.
Gianni stumbled half a step back. “Oy masakit!”
“Anong masakit?” Shai said, already laughing. “Mahina ka lang.”
“Ang lakas mo talaga manulak,” Gianni muttered, but there was no heat in it.
Just familiarity.
Just them.
They started walking without deciding where to go.
They never really needed to.
The streets already knew them.
The sari-sari stores, the tricycle drivers, the stray cats lounging under parked cars, everything seemed to recognize the shape of their routine.
Shai kicked a small stone ahead of her. “So…”
Gianni hummed. “So?”
A pause.
Shai glanced at her. “Last summer natin to, no?”
The air shifted.
Not dramatically. Not suddenly.
Just enough that Gianni’s steps slowed for half a second.
Then she laughed.
“Grabe ka naman,” she said. “Parang mamamatay na agad tayo after summer.”
Shai shrugged, but her smile didn’t fully reach her eyes. “Hindi naman. Just… alam mo na.”
Gianni looked ahead. “Oo na.”
And just like that, they pretended it didn’t land heavier than it should have.
They reached the convenience store like always.
The bell above the door rang softly as they entered, cool air swallowing the heat from outside. The shift was immediate, like stepping into a different version of the world where everything was quieter, slower, softer.
Shai went straight to the snacks aisle.
“Same?” she asked without looking back.
Gianni nodded. “Same.”
“Wow, effortful conversation ah.”
“Arte mo.”
Shai grabbed a pack of strawberry candies, holding it up like a victory. “Ito na naman tayo.”
Gianni smiled faintly. “Sawa ka na?”
Shai shook her head. “Hindi. Ikaw ba?”
A pause.
Gianni reached for a soda instead. “Hindi rin.”
Their fingers brushed briefly when Shai passed her the candy.
Neither of them moved away quickly.
At the counter, the cashier already looked bored.
“Na naman?” he said, like he had seen this exact scene too many times.
Shai grinned. “Na naman Pio!”
Gianni placed the soda down. “Routine na,”
Outside, they leaned against the store wall, unwrapping snacks without rushing.
For a while, they just ate in silence.
It wasn’t uncomfortable.
It never was.
But today, it felt… aware.
Like both of them were listening too closely to things they used to ignore.
Shai broke it first.
“So college,” she said casually, like she was talking about the weather.
Gianni paused mid-sip.
Then she laughed.
“Bakit, ngayon ka pa nag-start ng existential crisis?”
Shai shrugged. “Hindi naman crisis. Just… you’re going away.”
The words hung there.
Simple. Clean.
Heavy.
Gianni lowered the soda a little. “Eh ikaw din naman ah.”
“Different places,” Shai said.
A beat.
Then, softer, “Different everything.”
Gianni looked at her then.
Really looked.
Like she was trying to find the joke she usually used to soften things.
But Shai wasn’t joking.
Not this time.
So Gianni did what she always did when things got too real.
She smiled.
“Baka naman OA ka lang,” she said lightly. “Babalik-balik pa tayo dito, ano ka ba.”
Shai laughed, too fast.
“Oo nga. Ano ba ako.”
But she didn’t look convinced.
And Gianni didn’t push.
A car passed by, loud enough to interrupt the moment.
When it faded, the silence came back different.
Thicker.
More intentional.
Shai kicked at the ground. “So what now?”
Gianni raised an eyebrow. “Anong ‘what now’?”
“This summer,” Shai clarified. “Gagawin ba natin ‘to lang ulit?”
Gianni tilted her head slightly.
Then, slowly, “No.”
Shai looked up.
Gianni exhaled, small and uneven.
“Let’s make it count this time,” she said.
Shai blinked. “Count how?”
Gianni shrugged, like she didn’t fully know either.
“Basta… hindi yung usual natin.”
That made Shai quiet for a moment.
Then she smiled, small, real this time.
“Okay.”
A pause.
Then she bumped Gianni’s shoulder again, softer this time.
“Pero ikaw mag-aaya lagi.”
Gianni scoffed. “Ikaw kaya ang clingy.”
“Shut up.”
But they were both smiling now.
And just like that, without naming anything, without agreeing on anything beyond the moment, they started the summer again.
Not the same as before.
Something slightly more aware.
Something dangerously close to change.
But still pretending it wasn’t.
Shai looked down at the empty candy wrapper in her hand.
Gianni looked at the road ahead.
And neither of them said what they were both starting to feel that this summer wasn’t just another summer.
It was the one that would stay.
Long after it ended.
And just like that, summer became a routine again.
Except it wasn’t really routine.
Not when Gianni and Shai were involved.
Because their “normal” never looked normal to anyone else.
It looked like something softer. Something warmer. Something people didn’t quite know what to call, so they called it friendship, because that was easier.
But even friendship didn’t usually feel like this.
It started with rooftops.
Always rooftops.
The sun would begin to sink slowly, like it was reluctant to leave them alone, painting the sky in bruised oranges and fading pinks. The heat of the day softened, but the air still clung to their skin like memory.
Shai would climb up first, like she always did, careful but familiar with every ledge.
Gianni would follow behind her, slower on purpose.
“Ang hilig mo talaga umakyat, unggoy ka dati ‘no?” Gianni said, pulling herself up.
Shai turned, hair slightly messy from the wind.
“Eh mas maganda kaya dito,” she replied. “Obvious ba?”
Gianni looked around, then sat down beside her. “Wala namang nagbago.”
Shai leaned back on her hands. “Meron.”
Gianni glanced at her. “Ano?”
Shai didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she pointed at the sky.
“Dati mas maliwanag ‘yan.”
Gianni followed her gaze.
It wasn’t.
But she still said, “Daming alam.”
Shai laughed.
And just like that, the moment softened again.
Later, they would walk without destination.
Just movement.
Just existing beside each other.
Their footsteps never matched perfectly, but they always found a way back into sync.
Gianni would sometimes drift slightly closer without realizing.
Shai would sometimes slow down without saying why.
They passed by people who looked at them and smiled knowingly.
“Ang sweet nila,” someone once whispered.
Shai heard it.
Gianni did too.
Neither of them reacted.
At one point, Shai pulled out her earphones.
“Oh,” she said, handing one side to Gianni.
Gianni didn’t argue.
She never did.
Their shoulders touched lightly as they walked, one earbud each, music threading between them like something invisible but intimate.
Shai hummed along softly.
Gianni noticed.
“You don’t even know the lyrics,” she said.
Shai shrugged. “Feel ko lang.”
“Wow,” Gianni said flatly. “Deep.”
“Shut up.”
“Anong title?”
“Strawberries and Cigarettes. Troye Sivan.”
But Shai didn’t pull away.
Neither did Gianni.
There were moments that looked too close to something else.
But they never called it that.
Like the time Shai tripped slightly on uneven pavement, and Gianni instinctively grabbed her wrist.
“Careful,” Gianni said immediately.
Shai blinked. “OA mo.”
Gianni let go too fast. “Eh kasi naman.”
“Kasi ano?”
Gianni didn’t answer.
Instead, she shoved her hands into her pockets like she had done nothing at all.
Or the time they ended up at Shai’s house, lying side by side on her bed, phones in hand.
No conversation.
Just presence.
Shai scrolling.
Gianni half-watching something she wasn’t paying attention to.
The silence should’ve been empty.
But it wasn’t.
It was full.
Full of breathing. Full of proximity. Full of everything neither of them acknowledged.
Shai shifted slightly.
Her shoulder pressed against Gianni’s arm.
Gianni didn’t move away.
Shai didn’t either.
“Ang init,” Shai muttered.
“Fan ka,” Gianni replied.
“Hindi naman ‘yan fan, ikaw lang ‘yan.”
Gianni snorted. “Ang arte talaga, Shaira.”
Shai smiled into her phone.
But she didn’t move.
They never said when closeness became normal.
It just… did.
Like it had always been that way.
Shai fixing a strand of Gianni’s hair without thinking.
Gianni handing Shai snacks before she even asked.
Shai leaning her head on Gianni’s shoulder during random silences.
Gianni adjusting her pace so Shai wouldn’t walk ahead.
No questions.
No labels.
Just habits that felt too soft to question.
One afternoon, they were back on the rooftop again.
The sky already darkening.
Streetlights flickering awake one by one below them.
Shai lay flat this time, arms spread out.
“Gian,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think… weird tayo?”
Gianni frowned slightly. “Weird paano?”
Shai shrugged. “Like… ganito.”
A pause.
Gianni looked at her.
For a moment, it felt like she understood exactly what Shai meant.
But then she smiled.
“Hindi naman,” she said simply.
Shai nodded.
Like that was enough.
Like she didn’t need more.
But the thing about “normal” was this: The longer you stayed in it, the harder it became to tell if it was comfort… or avoidance.
And Gianni and Shai were very good at not asking questions that might change everything.
So they stayed.
In rooftops and sidewalks.
In shared earbuds and borrowed silence.
In almost-touching hands and almost-said words.
In everything that felt like it could last forever, if they never named it.
The sun finally disappeared completely that evening.
Leaving only the echo of orange in the sky.
Shai sat up slowly.
“Uwi na tayo?” she asked.
Gianni nodded. “Oo.”
They stood side by side.
Not rushing.
Never rushing.
Because they both still acted like there would always be another rooftop.
Another walk.
Another summer.
Another version of this that would never change.
But as they climbed down, shoulder brushing shoulder, steps falling slightly out of sync, something lingered in the air.
Something that sounded almost like a question neither of them dared to finish.
And somewhere, faint and unspoken, the feeling from the first day of summer still stayed: It started with a feeling.
And it still hadn’t gone away.
It started with a joke.
That was how it always started—when things got too real.
Night had already swallowed the streets whole, leaving only scattered yellow streetlights and the occasional passing tricycle breaking the silence. The air was cooler now, but heavier in a way neither of them commented on.
Gianni and Shai walked without direction again.
But this time, even their footsteps felt slower.
Less playful.
More aware.
Shai kicked a small stone ahead of them.
“Gian,” she said casually.
“Oh?”
“You ever think… everything happens for a reason?”
Gianni snorted softly. “Bigla ka naman naging philosopher.”
Shai shrugged. “Seryoso gaga.”
Gianni glanced at her. “Bakit ngayon ka nag-iisip ng ganyan?”
Shai hesitated.
For half a second, it looked like she would say it.
What are we, really?
But the words caught in her throat.
Instead,
“Wala lang,” she said quickly. “Naisip ko lang. Baka kasi pag late na tayo umuwi, may multo na.”
Gianni laughed. “Mga naiisip mo, Shai.”
But she didn’t laugh the same way back.
They passed a group of people smoking by the sidewalk.
The smoke drifted toward them briefly—thin, curling into the air like something fragile and temporary.
Shai wrinkled her nose. “Ang baho.”
Gianni hummed. “Sanay ka na dapat.”
Shai looked at her. “Bakit ako masasanay?”
Gianni shrugged. “Ewan ko.”
The smoke lingered anyway.
Like something that didn’t ask permission to stay in the air.
They never talked about it directly.
That night.
The tricycle ride home where the world felt too quiet, too small, too close.
It wasn’t even planned.
Shai had been cold.
Gianni had just… shifted closer.
Their hands brushed first.
Then stayed.
Not holding.
Not letting go.
Just existing in that almost-space between choice and accident.
Now, walking side by side under streetlights, Shai’s fingers twitched slightly at her side.
Like they remembered something her mind refused to name.
Gianni noticed.
But said nothing.
Shai broke the silence first.
“Gian.”
“Hmm?”
“Kung mawala ako sa contact mo, mamimiss mo ba ko?”
Gianni stopped walking for half a second.
Then continued.
“Anong klaseng tanong ‘yan?”
“Answer mo lang.”
Gianni sighed. “Oo naman.”
Shai nodded.
“Okay.”
But she didn’t sound satisfied.
They reached the convenience store again without planning to.
It had become automatic.
Like muscle memory.
Shai grabbed strawberry candy again.
Gianni took soda again.
No discussion.
No deviation.
Just repetition disguised as comfort.
Outside, they sat on the pavement near the store wall.
Shai leaned her head back.
“Gian.”
“Oh?”
“Alam mo ba yung feeling na… parang may gusto kang itanong pero natatakot ka sa sagot?”
Gianni glanced at her.
For a moment, her expression softened in a way she didn’t let stay long.
Then she shrugged.
“Hindi.”
Shai laughed quietly. “Swerte mo.”
Gianni didn’t respond.
Because she did know.
She just didn’t say it.
The rain didn’t start gently.
It arrived like a decision.
One moment the sky was just dark.
The next, everything was falling.
Gianni grabbed Shai’s wrist instinctively.
“Dun muna tayo!” she said, pulling her toward the nearest covered court.
They ran.
Laughing at first.
Then breathless.
Then quiet again once they were under shelter.
The rain outside sounded like static.
Like the world refusing to stay still.
They sat on the concrete steps.
Close, but not touching.
At first.
Shai hugged her knees. “Ang lakas ng ulan.”
Gianni nodded. “Oo.”
Silence stretched.
Longer than usual.
Different than usual.
Shai spoke first.
“Gian…”
“Hmm?”
“Paano kung… hindi tayo masyado magkita sa college?”
Gianni leaned back slightly.
“Edi hindi.”
Shai looked at her. “Ang dali mo namang sabihin.”
Gianni exhaled.
“Shai, lahat naman ng tao hindi magkasama forever. May kanya kanya tayong magiging buhay. Pero di naman ibig sabihin non, kakalimutan natin ang isa’t isa.”
That landed differently.
Heavier.
Shai looked down at her hands.
“…Oo nga.”
Another silence.
But this one didn’t feel safe.
It felt full.
Too full.
Shai suddenly spoke again, softer this time.
“Gian.”
“Hmm?”
“What if… hindi tayo ganito next time?”
Gianni frowned. “Anong ‘ganito’?”
Shai hesitated.
“Yung tayo.”
Gianni didn’t answer immediately.
Rain filled the space instead.
Then Shai said it.
Quiet.
Careful.
Almost like she didn’t mean to let it out.
“If we weren’t scared…”
A pause.
Gianni turned slightly toward her.
Shai finally looked at her properly.
“…what would we be?”
The question stayed there.
Between them.
Alive.
Unanswered.
Gianni opened her mouth—but her phone rang.
The sound cut through everything.
She blinked, startled, pulling it out.
“Hello?”
Shai looked away.
The moment slipped.
Just like that.
After that night, nothing changed.
But everything felt different.
They just didn’t say it.
“Last time natin dito,” Shai said once, sitting on the same rooftop.
Gianni frowned. “Bakit last?”
Shai shrugged. “Ewan. Feels like it.”
Gianni didn’t argue.
“Last time natin maglalakad nang ganito,” Gianni said another day, softer.
Shai laughed. “OA mo.”
But she slowed down anyway.
“Last time natin magpuyat na walang iniisip,” Shai murmured, lying on the bed again.
Gianni hummed. “Oo nga.”
Neither of them corrected the word last.
They started holding onto moments without admitting it.
Longer hugs.
Shai lingering before letting go.
Gianni fixing Shai’s hair slower than necessary.
Hands brushing and staying just a second too long.
Not enough to name.
Too much to ignore.
One evening, Shai hugged her tighter than usual.
Gianni paused.
“Ang tagal,” she said softly.
Shai didn’t let go immediately.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
But she didn’t move away faster.
And Gianni didn’t either.
They never said goodbye.
Not once.
But somehow, everything they did now sounded like practice for it.
And somewhere in all of it, like a song playing too quietly to notice but too persistent to ignore, the summer kept going.
Even as it slowly began to end.
———
The night felt too quiet for something that was supposed to be normal.
Gianni and Shai didn’t say it out loud, but both of them moved like they already knew—this was the last time the summer would feel like this.
Not the last time they would see each other.
Just the last time they would still pretend they had forever.
They started where everything always started.
The convenience store.
But it didn’t feel the same anymore.
The bell above the door still rang when they entered, still cold air brushing against their skin, but even that felt distant now, like a memory happening in real time.
Shai grabbed the strawberry candy automatically.
Paused.
Then looked at Gianni.
“…same?” she asked.
Gianni hesitated.
Then nodded. “Same.”
But her voice wasn’t as certain as before.
Outside, they didn’t sit immediately.
They walked first.
Without destination.
Without jokes at the start.
Just silence.
They passed the rooftop.
The street corner.
The tricycle stop.
The places that used to feel infinite now felt… counted.
Measured.
Like someone had been quietly removing pieces of their world without telling them.
Shai broke the silence.
“Gianni.”
“Hmm?”
“Pag umalis na tayo… magbabago ba tayo?”
Gianni looked ahead.
A long pause.
“Di ko alam. Siguro,” she said honestly.
Shai nodded like she expected that answer.
But it still hurt.
They ended up on the rooftop anyway.
Of course they did.
The sky was darker now, almost completely swallowed by night, but the city lights below flickered like they were trying to hold something together.
Shai lay down first.
Gianni followed.
Same place.
Different feeling.
Shai spoke into the sky.
“Gian…”
“Hmm.”
“Alam mo yung weird?”
“What?”
“Parang lahat ng lugar dito… ikaw na agad naiisip ko.”
Gianni didn’t respond right away.
Then quietly, “Ganun din naman ako.”
Silence.
Not empty.
Just full.
Shai turned her head.
“People always thought we were together.”
Gianni exhaled through her nose, almost a laugh but not quite.
“Ang dami nilang assumptions.”
Shai stared at her.
This time, she didn’t deflect.
“Were we?”
The question didn’t sound like a joke anymore.
It sounded like something that had been waiting years to be asked.
Gianni didn’t answer immediately.
She sat up slightly.
Looked at Shai properly.
For a second, it felt like everything before this had been leading here.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Honest.
Simple.
Shai nodded slowly.
Then softer, “I think we were something.”
A pause.
Gianni didn’t interrupt.
Shai continued, voice quieter now.
“Just… not brave enough to name it.”
That word stayed between them.
Name it.
Like it had always been there, just waiting.
They didn’t say anything after that.
No confession followed.
No sudden clarity.
Just two girls lying on a rooftop under a sky that didn’t care what they were called.
Eventually, Shai shifted closer.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Gianni didn’t move away.
Neither of them said anything about it.
But their hands ended up near each other.
Not holding.
Just… there.
Close enough to choose.
Close enough not to.
And they stayed like that.
Longer than they should have.
Long enough for it to feel like a goodbye they refused to acknowledge.
Morning came too quietly.
No dramatic light.
No sudden realization.
Just a slow, ordinary sunrise that didn’t care what it was ending.
The terminal was already busy.
People leaving.
People staying.
People pretending not to feel anything.
Gianni and Shai stood in the middle of it like they didn’t belong to either group.
They tried to act normal.
Of course they did.
Shai adjusted her bag strap. “Ang daming tao.”
Gianni nodded. “Yeah...”
Pause.
That was it.
That was all they could manage at first.
The bus engine hummed nearby, already waiting.
Too loud for how quiet they were.
Shai laughed suddenly.
Small. Forced.
“Gian, promise mo ha.”
Gianni frowned. “Ano?”
“Wag mo ko kakalimutan.”
Gianni blinked.
Then scoffed softly. “Ang OA mo talaga.”
But her voice wasn’t steady.
They stood there longer than necessary.
Neither of them moving first.
Then Gianni reached up.
Fixed a strand of Shai’s hair that wasn’t even really out of place.
Her fingers lingered a second too long.
Shai didn’t stop her.
The bus horn sounded again.
Closer now.
Shai stepped forward first.
Then stopped.
Like she was waiting for something.
Like she still believed something could be said in time.
Gianni opened her arms.
Not wide.
Not dramatic.
Just enough.
The hug lasted longer than it should have.
Not tight enough to be desperate.
But not light enough to be casual.
Somewhere in between.
Where they always lived.
Shai whispered, barely audible,
“Gian…”
Gianni closed her eyes for a second.
“Hmm?”
Shai didn’t finish.
When they pulled away, neither of them looked fully okay.
But neither of them broke either.
Shai stepped back toward the bus.
One step.
Then another.
Gianni raised her hand slightly.
Half wave.
Half something else.
Shai paused at the step.
Turned.
Like she was about to say it.
Whatever “it” was.
Her mouth opened—
The bus door closed.
And just like that—she was gone.
Gianni stood there long after the bus left.
Still.
Quiet.
Like if she stayed still enough, nothing would change.
But it already had.
———
Years don’t feel like years when you don’t mark them properly.
They just… pass.
Quietly.
Like something you were never fully holding in the first place slowly slipping through your fingers until one day you stop noticing it’s gone.
Gianni learned that somewhere between new cities, new routines, and new people who learned her laugh without ever knowing where it first came from.
It happened on an ordinary afternoon.
The kind that doesn’t warn you.
The kind that doesn’t feel important enough to remember until it suddenly becomes the only thing you can.
Gianni was walking home when she heard it.
Not even clearly at first.
Just a sound bleeding out from a passing car speaker.
“Strawberries and cigarettes always taste like you…”
She stopped.
Mid-step.
Like her body recognized something her mind hadn’t agreed to yet.
For a moment, the world didn’t continue.
The noise of the street dulled.
The air shifted.
And suddenly, she wasn’t there anymore.
She was back on a rooftop.
Sunset bleeding into orange.
Shai’s voice laughing somewhere beside her.
Strawberry candy sticking slightly to her teeth.
Warm pavement under bare feet.
Shoulders touching without asking.
Hands almost holding.
“Gianni, bilis!” Shai shouting somewhere in the past, half running ahead of her.
“Madaya ka!” Gianni laughing, breathless, like losing didn’t matter.
Then, the back of a tricycle.
Night air brushing against their hands.
That almost-touch.
That silence that wasn’t empty.
Gianni blinked hard.
The present snapped back too quickly.
Too sharply.
A car horn. A passing voice. A stranger brushing past her shoulder.
She was standing in the middle of a sidewalk again.
Alone.
“You always leave me wanting more…”
Her throat tightened slightly, unexpected.
She looked down at her hand like it belonged to someone else.
“Hey.”
A voice pulled her fully back.
Pat—her girlfriend—someone kind, someone steady, someone real in a way the memory never was.
She tilted their head slightly.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
Gianni blinked.
She hadn’t realized she was.
Her fingers loosened slowly at her side.
“…I just remembered something,” she said quietly.
Not a name.
Not a story.
Not even a place.
Just something.
But it wasn’t something.
It was everything.
That summer came back all at once.
Not as a memory she chose.
But as one that chose her.
The rooftops. The walks. The shared silence. The almosts.
The way Shai said her name like it meant more than sound.
The way they never needed to define anything to feel like it existed.
Gianni swallowed.
Looked away.
Let the present hold her again.
But it didn’t leave.
Not really.
It never had.
Because some people don’t stay in your life.
They stay in your senses.
In songs you didn’t mean to hear.
In candy you don’t buy anymore.
In the smell of summer air that suddenly feels too familiar to be random.
In silence that still knows their shape.
Later that night, Gianni stood by her window.
City lights blurred outside.
Her reflection faint against the glass.
She thought about calling it something.
What they were.
What they had been.
What they never became.
But nothing fit.
Nothing ever had.
So she didn’t name it.
She just let it exist.
Because the truth was simple in a way that hurt less when unspoken:
They were never just friends in feeling.
They were never really nothing either.
Just unnamed.
Her phone buzzed somewhere behind her.
Life continuing.
People calling her back to the present.
But for a second longer, Gianni stayed there.
Between then and now.
Between memory and reality.
Between everything she had lived after and everything she never really left.
And softly—almost like a thought she didn’t mean to finish—she understood:
Some things don’t end. They just stop being called anything.