I knew that I had damaged our relationship beyond repair but I also knew that he had long since forgiven me. Still, forgiveness does not mean forgetting. We would never be the same. We would never have the same closeness we once shared but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be a friendly face to smile at in passing for one another.

When I caught his eyes on the way to my new assignment, he just shoved his hands in his pockets in the bashful way he always did and gave me that boyish smile I had once grown to adore— that smile I had been willing to do anything to see. He was surrounded by his new friends and he didn’t move to leave them but I felt greatful he merely even acknowledged me. I gestured down to the box in my hands, all of my belongings that would journey with me to my new department. He simply nodded. It was a silent goodbye. A silent ‘I’ll see you around’. He wouldn’t ever say those words to me. Talking would be too painful. Still, I felt the sentiment in his warm gaze. I nodded back and then, like that, I put one foot in front of the other and continued to the elevators.

This isn’t at all how I imagined things would turn out. Obviously, the best case senario would have been no emotional harm coming to either of us. But, life is messy like that. It can devolve in an instant, seasons can change in a single day, friendships you thought would last a lifetime can suddenly reach their final chapter. But between all of the messy moments, moments of warmth and calm, like this one, can appear.

As I stepped through the elevator doors with steely determination, I made peace with the marketing department and my time with him.

He was okay.

I was okay.

And everything would be okay.