Even after what seems like ages in a span of time you think you've become okay, it's the littlest nuances that seem to contrive your whole existence from a single face and bring about all the forgotten things you use to do, and say and share with one of the most important people in your life, in a single moment. You think you're fine, and you haven't a means nor a purpose to remember the things that hurt you, so you simply don't.
Then, one day, there they are: someone you thought you'd never see again, all the same someone you never thought would invoke this demonizing sense of regret that just breaks you down into the moment and rattles you to the very bone with antagonizing nostalgia. And the flood of memories return, from every midnight walk to every moment spent talking, smiling and learning from one another. And it begins to make you cringe and hurt inside that what once was is no more, and this friend will never be a friend again.
What a cruel irony to think what were lost in a series of unfortunate events would eventually - and even, once upon a time, you thought to yourself "hopefully" - disappear and mean nothing, only for it all to come back; that daunting whisper in the back of your conscience telling you "you still care" all the while berating the question as to why you do. It may seem and feel complicated, but it's always so simple: they held great value to your life.
The most painful thing to feel in life is to lose someone important to you, permanently. But, those kinds of situations are easy enough to endure, considering their resolve is absolute - you can't do anything about someone passing away. But when it comes to someone who simply had to leave because of merely bad circumstance, nobody teaches you how to cope with that. And it becomes an incessant pain wandering in the desert of the mind struggling, trying to figure out what, if anything, there is for you to do to fix it. The most aching question of all isn't "how do I get past this?" - No.
The most aching of all questions is, how do you convince a shadow to come to life?