When the boy I once was and the man I would become meet - III

Other articles in this series: Monologue to the Boy I Once was - I, Monologue from the Boy I Once Was - II

It happens in a place that doesn’t exist on any map, a place stitched together from memory and imagination. A room that looks a little like the one in Belgrade, a little like the one in Cyprus, and a little like the one nowhere at all. The air smells like dust, sea salt, and old memories. A television hums in the corner, frozen on the opening frame of Табор уходит в небо.

The boy sits on the couch.

Feet not touching the floor.

Hands folded in his lap like he’s waiting for a verdict.

The man walks in, older, heavier with years, but carrying them well. He looks like someone who’s been through storms and learned to walk in the rain.

They see each other.

The boy’s eyes widen.

The man’s soften.

For a moment, neither speaks.

Then the man sits beside him, leaving just enough space for the past to breathe.

“You’re almost real,” the boy whispers.

“So are you,” the man answers.

The boy looks down at his hands. “I thought I was alone.”

“You were,” the man says. “But you didn’t stay that way.”

The boy swallows. “Does it get better?”

The man thinks. Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he wants to give the truth, not a fairy tale.

“It gets harder first,” he says. “Then better. Then harder again. But you learn how to walk through it. You learn how to stay yourself.”

The boy nods slowly, as if absorbing a language he was born to speak.

“Do I become you?” he asks.

The man smiles - not proudly, not sadly, but with the kind of acceptance that comes from surviving yourself.

“You become someone stronger,” he says. “Someone who remembers you. Someone who carries you. Someone who never lets you disappear.”

The boy’s eyes shine. “And the song? The movie? The feeling?”

“They stay,” the man says. “They go quiet for a long time, but they come back when you’re ready. And when they do, they don’t hurt the same way. They explain things.”

The boy leans against him, cautiously at first, then fully, like a child finally finding a place to rest.

The man puts an arm around him.

Outside the window, the world shifts: Belgrade’s rooftops blend into Cyprus sunlight, blend into the dark roads of adulthood.

The television flickers.

The music begins.

Loli Phabay rises like a ghost, like a memory, like a promise.

And for the first time, both versions of him watch it together.

Not as a warning.

Not as a wound.

But as a story they survived.