The letter stayed on my kitchen table for two days before I could bring myself to answer it.
I moved it from place to place, as though shifting its location might soften its meaning. First, it lay flat against the wood, its fold still sharp from the post. Then I tucked it into a cookbook on the counter, as if hiding it among recipes might make it less dangerous. Later, I slipped it beneath the vase of dahlias on the windowsill, but the petals drooped over it as though flowers themselves could sense the weight of what it carried.
Every time I tried to ignore it, the words burned brighter in my mind. I'd like to see you—if you'd want that.
Did I want that?
The question throbbed in me like a second heartbeat.
By the third night, I gave up pretending. I sat down at the table, the letter unfolded before me, and I pulled a sheet of paper toward me. My hand hovered over it for what felt like hours, pen poised but unmoving.
What do you say to the man who was once your entire world, who left with promises that dissolved into silence? What words could span the chasm of years between us?
At last, I wrote the only truth I could manage:
Adrian,
Yes. I'd like to see you too.
Elara
That was it. No hesitation, no questions, no demands. Just three lines. My hand shook as I folded it, slid it into an envelope, and pressed the flap shut. My lips brushed the seal instinctively, as if my breath could steady what my words could not.
I walked to the postbox the next morning, the envelope clutched tight in my hand, and when I let it drop into the slot, I felt both lighter and unbearably exposed.
The waiting began.
Days passed, and I found myself listening for the postman's steps, straining for the metallic click of the slot. When no reply came immediately, I pretended indifference, but my heart betrayed me each time I passed the door.
And then, finally, it arrived.
Another envelope, his handwriting spilling across the front, my name inked as though he had written it too quickly, too urgently.
I didn't even sit down to open it. Standing in the hallway, coat still on, I tore the flap with clumsy fingers.
Elara,
Thank you. I wasn't sure you'd answer, or that I had the right to ask. Would you meet me? There's a café on Rosehill Street—the little one with the blue door. You used to love their lemon tarts. Tomorrow, three o'clock. If you come, I'll be there. If not, I'll understand.
Adrian
I stared at the page until the words blurred. The little café with the blue door—I hadn't thought of it in years. It was where we used to go on Sunday afternoons, when coins were scarce but laughter was plentiful. He'd buy one pot of tea for us to share, and I'd steal sugar cubes from the dish, pretending not to notice when the waiter scowled. Once, he saved for weeks to buy me one of those lemon tarts, presenting it to me like treasure. I had laughed, kissed him across the table, and whispered that it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me.
And now, after all these years, he wanted to meet me there again.
I spent the rest of the day pacing. I told myself reasons not to go: what if the years had turned him into someone unrecognizable? What if seeing him reopened wounds that had only just begun to scar? What if he only wanted closure, to tidy away the past that still haunted me?
But beneath all those questions was a single truth: I wanted to see him.
The mirror in my bedroom became my enemy that night. I stood before it, trying to decide what to wear, as though clothes could armor me against the onslaught of old emotions. Everything I put on felt wrong—too young, too old, too plain, too deliberate. I ended up with a simple dress in soft gray, the kind that didn't draw attention but made me feel like myself. I left my hair loose, though silver threaded it now, catching the lamplight.
When I finally lay down, I didn't sleep. My heart thudded in restless anticipation, pulling me back through time to every moment we had shared. The first kiss beneath lanterns, the way he used to sketch me absentmindedly on scraps of paper, the curve of his handwriting in letters I once tucked beneath my pillow.
By morning, I felt both exhausted and more alive than I had in years.
The hours crawled. I tried to busy myself with chores—laundry, dusting shelves, pruning the roses in the garden—but my hands shook, clumsy and impatient. By noon, I gave up the pretense. I sat at the kitchen table, the clock ticking loudly in the quiet, waiting for the hands to release me.
At two-thirty, I left the house. The walk to Rosehill Street was short, but each step felt weighted with a thousand possibilities.
When the café finally came into view, the sight of that blue door stopped me cold. It was the same as I remembered—slightly chipped, the paint worn smooth by years of weather and touch. I stood across the street, clutching my bag, unable to move.
And then I saw him.
Through the window, seated at a corner table, his head bent slightly as he fiddled with the spoon in his cup. His hair was touched with gray now, his frame broader, shoulders heavier with years. But even from across the street, I knew him. The curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the way he tapped his fingers against the table in an old, familiar rhythm—it was him.
Adrian.
My breath caught. My knees wobbled. For a moment, I thought of turning back, fleeing before he could see me. But something stronger pulled me forward, across the street, toward the blue door.
I pushed it open.
The bell above chimed softly, and he lifted his head.
His eyes met mine.
And just like that, twenty years collapsed into nothing.