Where the River Meets the Stars

The river had always served as their place.

When they were kids Mira and Rowan spent every summer evening sitting at the old wooden dock of her grandparents countryside home. They'd put their feet in the cool water and toss pebbles and pretend the fireflies dancing above them were tiny fallen stars.

Back then, love was not a word they had to say. It was simply the way that his laughter located hers and how her heart beat settled whenever he was nearby.

But time had a habit of taking you things that you were not ready to lose.

At the age of seventeen, Rowan left town after his father died, following opportunities Mira couldn't follow. They wrote letters at first, and then they wrote fewer, and then they didn't write at all - and silence became their only connection.

Years blurred. Mira grew, learned, healed, and built a life that she has not expected. But sometimes, especially on warm nights, though, she'd find herself splitting back to the river, sitting on the dock as if waiting for a boy who no longer existed.

This night was one of those nights.

The sky had just begun to fade into soft twilight as Mira sat alone on the dock wearing her blue dress which fluttered in the soft breeze. Her fingers touched the surface of the water watching ripples shine with the dying sun.

That is when she heard footsteps.

She thought it was her cousin or one of the farm workers - until the steps stopped behind her. Then came a voice that she knew to her bones.

“Mira?”

Her heart stilled.

Slowly, she turned.

Light from a lantern in Rowan's hand outlined the silhouette of him a few feet away. He looked older, stronger - broad shoulders, tired eyes, hair a little longer than before - but there was something about him that was achingly familiar.

"Rowan," she said not much above a whisper.

For some time, they only stared at each other. Decade upon decade crashed down between them like a wave making its way off the beach.

"I wasn't sure that you came here anymore," he said soft-voice.

"I wasn't sure that you remembered," she replied.

His smile was little and almost shy. “I remembered everything.”

Mira’s chest tightened. She moved a bit to one side, patting the place to her side. He hesitated not more than a second than he walked to the edge of the dock and sat down, lantern between them.

Silence settled - awkward, fragile.

But underneath it, there was a warmth which did not dare touch.

“What brought you back?” Mira finally asked.

Rowan looked at the river. “My mother sold the house. I came to help her pack . . . I kept thinking about this place.

“About us?” she asked gently.

He exhaled. “Especially about us.”

The air became thicker, filled with unmentioned things.

“We were young,” Mira murmured. “People grow. They change.”

"Did you?" he asked turning towards her. “Change?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not enough.”

Rowan's eyes softened in such a way it had made her pulse go wild. “You look the same, Mira. Not in the way people mean it. You… still feel like you.”

She swallowed. "I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.")

“It’s everything,” he said.

A firefly floated between them - glowably. Mira observed the small light, and then asked the question that had been in her mind for so many years:

“Why did you stop writing?”

Rowan’s jaw tightened. “My letters changed. I kept trying to put on paper something I wasn't bold enough to say. And the longer I waited the harder it got.

“What were you trying to say?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he dipped his hand in the river allowing droplets of water to slide from his fingertips.

"Negro youth's parent said, "That leaving was the biggest mistake I ever made." Beauty tries to comfort him with "And every city that I went felt wrong because you weren't there"

Mira’s breath caught.

"I thought you forgot me" came her whispered response.

“I tried,” he admitted. “I really did.”

She looked at him searching his face. His eyes glistened - not with tears, but with something raw and honest.

He reached out, the fingers hanging just above hers. “Mira… I returned because I couldn't leave again (without seeing) you. Without knowing if—”

He stopped, being afraid of the answer.

She slipped the gap between their hands.

Her fingers touched his.

Slowly, gently decorating them, intertwined them,

Rowan was exhaling shakily like a man who'd been holding his breath for years.

“You still fit,” he whispered.

“So do you,” she said.

The river whispered under them reflecting twilight stars Fireflies moved closer and surrounded them like silent witnesses.

Rowan turned towards her and searched her eyes. "Go ahead and say it's too late, and I'll walk away. I won’t come back. But if there’s even a chance…”

Mira felt her heart tremble.

Ten years of silence.

Ten years of wondering.

Ten years being waiting and not admitting she was waiting.

She took a breath. “Rowan…”

He held his breath.

She tenderly leaned her head on his shoulder.

“It was always you.”

Rowan closed his eyes, relief breaking on his face like breakneck. He came up behind her and put an arm around her, pulling her onto his lap, the light of the lantern shining on the river.

They sat together long into the night - two souls finding their way back, not by fate, but by the simplicity of the fact that some loves don't go away.

They wait.