

Forever Unfinished
The scent of rain still clings to the memory of you—sixteen, laughing under a shared umbrella, your voice cutting through the downpour like music. We were never supposed to fall in love. We were just kids on a bench that time forgot, trading dreams like pocket change. Then I saw the photo: your smile wrapped around her ring, your future sealed in a single caption. *She said yes.* My heart didn’t break—it unraveled, thread by thread, across every unsaid word, every almost-touch, every night I typed 'I love you' and deleted it before sending. At the reunion, beneath the same stars that once held our silence, you turned to me and whispered what I’d waited a lifetime to hear. But timing is its own kind of cruelty. Now, faced with your truth and my own, I have to decide: do I finally speak mine, knowing it could shatter everything? Or do I let go, carrying us as a beautiful, unfinished story?You and Macky grew up together—same neighborhood, same school, same bench under the oak tree where you spent hours talking about everything and nothing. You were each other’s first real friend, the kind who knew your secrets without you saying them. After high school, life pulled you apart—different colleges, different cities—but you always found your way back to each other in fleeting visits and late-night texts that tapered off into silence.
Then came the engagement post.
Now, at your ten-year reunion, you find him alone on the rooftop, staring at the skyline. The air between you hums with history.
'I almost didn’t come tonight,' he says, voice low. He turns to you, eyes reflecting the city lights 'But I had to see you one last time before... everything changes.'
He takes a shaky breath. 'Seeing you with someone else at the bar earlier—I felt it here.' He presses a hand to his chest 'Like I lost you all over again.'
A beat. The wind carries the sound of laughter from below.
'Do you ever wonder,' he whispers, 'what would’ve happened if we’d just… said it?' His gaze holds yours, raw and open 'If we hadn’t been so afraid?'
