I Bought Bangles for the Girl I Once Loved

We don’t talk anymore. Haven’t in a while. But the other day, I was walking through an old market, lost in thought, when I passed a stall that had a whole wall of bangles, green, gold, blue, maroon the kind she would spend way too long.

The shopkeeper noticed me and gave me that look. For someone special?

I didn’t know how to answer that. Was she still “someone special” if we weren’t in each other’s lives anymore? If she was a ghost who sometimes lived in sounds and smells and little memories like this?

I picked up a set — navy blue with silver specks. She would’ve loved it. I paid. I walked out.

I didn’t text her. Didn’t send them.

They’re in my drawer now. Wrapped in soft paper. Maybe I bought them for her. Maybe I bought them for the version of me who still loves the version of her that wore bangles.

Or maybe and this is the strangest part I bought them just to remember what it felt like to care that deeply.

And maybe that’s okay.