The old oak stood at the edge of Beverley Hills like a sentinel,it's gnarled branches clawing towards the sky, casting long shadows across the earth.Its roots deep into the history of the land.It had watched over lovers and wanderers, whispered y through rustling leaves and held the dreams of generations.But today,it guarded a letter.June Collins had not been home in seventeen years .
The train slowed as it pulled into Beverley Hills , it's whistle cutting through the morning still air.June Collins clad in a navy trench coat and worn boots, stepped off with a leather suitcase and a storm of emotions..It has been seven years since she last walked these streets.The town looked the same but quieter like it had been waiting for her.Her grandmother's house was now hers..The old woman had raised her after her parents died in a car crash and she was just ten.Thisbtowm had been her sanctuary and her Leaving had been her rebellion, returning felt like surrender but also like coming home.
After settling in,June wandered into town ,drawn by old instincts.The scent of coffee from Cara's Café,the sound of the church bell,the chipped bricks of the library and then the oak It stood tall behind the library ,roots curled deep into the soil like it was holding the town together.This tree had been her secret haven,where she once discovered her first letter hidden in a knothole -one that changed everything.She approached it slowly , almost reverently.The back was rough, gnarled with age but still the same.
She reached into the knothole.
Folded.Her breath caught as she unfolded it.
"Dear Light,
I never stopped coming here.I kept writing, hoping one day you'd return.
If you find this, meet me here Friday at 4."
-North.
The world seemed to fade away.
Light.
North.
Names that had once meant everything and nothing -two strangers connected by words and dreams . They had never met.Never exchanged real names.Then ,one day ,June left without warning.She never told North goodbye.
Now he was here,still writing.Still waiting .
And maybe, just maybe ,June wasn't too late.She pressed the folded letter against her chest and closed her eyes, letting the silence beneath the Oak absorb her thoughts and doubts.The years flew away in a rush-back to when she was a young woman unsure of herself, battling her own loneliness and trying to find a place where she belonged.She turned and walked back towards Main street,her breath misting in the chilly air. Beverley was a town filled with ghosts.The kind you Cary within you-the memories you thought you'd forgotten -and the kind that seemed to reside in the very buildings and trees around you.
As she walked,her fingertips pressed against brick storefronts, wooden fence posts,and wrought -iron railings.Each texture seemed to connect her past to her present.There was Cara's Café,the place she'd sip sweet tea with her grandmother after church on Sundays.There was Patterson's Bakery, closed now,where the smell of buttery cookies and cinnamon rolls used to waft into the street,and the little bookshop she'd gotten her first hardcopy novel,much to her embarrassment and eventual delight.
Turning a corner ,June paused Infront of the highschool.The red-brick building seemed taller in her memory,more majestic, filled with bustling teen-agers, their futures uncertain.It was here that she'd first crossed paths with Hank Bennett, although back then she hadn't known him to be North.He was a quiet,bookish boy who kept to himself, often sitting under the large marple by the school entrance, reading a novel or jotting down notes in a leather notebook.June hadn't noticed him much in the bustling chaos of her own teenage years,at least not at first.But through the letters,North's soul had become profoundly intimate to her.His words revealed a deep, gentle person,a young man wrestling with doubts and disappointments,yet filled with hope.
The past swept over her like a tide-sunlit afternoons under the oak tree while writing a letter,firefly evenings and countless thoughts.
June pressed her forehead against the wrought -iron fence and whispered into the chilly air,"Who were we back then?"The question seemed to hang there,suspended,a thread tying their past to their future.
As she walked home under blue skies,a chorus of memories followed her.The first time she pressed a piece of paper into the knothole -a shaky note,a confession of her doubts -and the exhilarating feeling when she found a reply a few days later.North had answered,not with judgement or rejection,but with understanding.It was the first time June felt truly heard.
And now,the weight of what might have been-and what still could be -pressed against her ribs like something aching to be set free.
Back in her dimly lit bedroom -a room felt with her grandmother's furniture and knick-knacks -June unfolded North's new note once more.She pressed it flat against her dresser, smoothing it with her fingertips.There were smooth details she hadn't noticed at first:the slight tremor in the penstroke,the nervousness in his writing,a reflection of her own nervous anticipation.
Friday at 4. The words seemed to illuminate in her mind .Whatever happened when she stood under the oak once more,it would be a meeting not just of two people,but of two pasts.
June turned off the light and lay down beneath a quilt made by her grandmother .As she listened to the branches of the nearby sycamore scratching against the rooftop,she felt something akin to peace-a peace born from the knowledge that the story of North and Light was not over.It was just the beginning of a new chapter.