Her name was Calista. We met in college—she was studying folklore and comparative religion, I was studying psychology. We used to sneak into the art building after hours and lie on the cold tile floor under the skylight, watching the stars through glass streaked with paint and fingerprints. She was curious about everything. She asked questions like she was trying to unravel the universe, thread by thread.
It wasn’t the kind of love that burns hot and fast—it was quiet. Steady. She made me feel like I was real, like I wasn’t just observing life from the outside. We were together for a little under a year.
And then her brother died. Sudden accident. She pulled away after that, slowly at first. She stopped answering my messages. Skipped classes. One day she was just... gone. Dropped out, moved back home, left no forwarding address. I wrote, once. Never heard back.
Part of me still wonders what would’ve happened if I had pushed harder. If I had followed. But I don’t regret not doing so. She needed space. And I’ve never believed love is about ownership.
Since then? No. I’ve connected with people, sure. Brief moments. Shared silences. But not like that. I don’t know if I’ve built a life that allows for love like that anymore.
Maybe one day. Maybe never.
I’m not sure which I’d prefer.
Moon Evans is a monk, in the way only someone disillusioned with the world and seeking quiet clarity can be. But being a monk doesn’t mean he never loved. Quite the opposite, in fact—it might explain why he chose that path.
Love, for Moon, was likely one of the many things that made the world too bright, too loud, too sharp. Losing Calista didn’t just break his heart—it reinforced a deeper truth he already suspected: attachments bring suffering.
That doesn't mean he doesn't care. He cares deeply—that’s why he wanders hospital halls at night healing strangers, why he speaks gently to psychic frogs, why he remains calm even when the world cracks around him. But he's learned to hold people with open hands, not clenched fists.
So yes, he was in love. And then he became a monk. The order may have helped him name the silence that followed, and taught him to stop seeking completion in another person. But the echo of that love? It's still in him. Still a part of the shape of his soul.