A Faded Memory on the Wall
It was a regular afternoon when I noticed something I hadn’t seen in years—a heart carved into the wall. The initials inside it were faded, but still legible. They were mine and my ex’s, a mark of a relationship long gone. I had completely forgotten about it, a small piece of the past that I never thought about anymore.
When I saw it, a rush of old memories came back. It was a strange feeling, but I quickly pushed it aside. I didn’t want it to mean anything, and I certainly didn’t want it to affect my current life. I was married now, and those memories belonged to another time, another person.

But when my husband noticed the carving, everything changed. He stared at it for a long moment, and I could see the emotions swirling in his eyes. I tried to explain, to reassure him. “I didn’t even notice it before,” I told him. “It’s nothing. It means nothing now.”

But for him, those initials represented something different—a reminder of my past, a part of me that he hadn’t fully known. It wasn’t just about the carving itself; it was about the idea of me having a history with someone else, something he hadn’t been a part of.
I could see it in his face. Even though I had moved on and built a life with him, there were things from my past that still left marks, just as the carving left marks on the wall. I realized that sometimes, no matter how much time has passed, some things can still stir up old feelings, even when they no longer matter to us.