Love and Other Words

“What’s your favorite word today?”

Maya froze, her fingers hovering over the worn spine of a secondhand novel in the old bookstore. She hadn’t heard that voice in almost a decade. Not since the summer they said goodbye.

She turned.

Elliot Hart stood in the poetry aisle, looking too much like the boy she once read Neruda with under an oak tree, and too little like the man she’d spent years trying to forget.

Maya blinked. “Elliot?”

He smiled, sheepish. “Still haunting bookstores, I see.”

“You remembered.” Her voice barely escaped her throat.

He walked closer. “How could I forget the girl who told me ‘ephemeral’ was the most romantic word in the English language?”

They both laughed, awkward and unsure. A silence filled the gap where ten years had lived — filled with new lives, lost dreams, and everything they never said.

Ten years ago, words were their love language.

They met at seventeen, both quiet and too full of thoughts. She was grieving the loss of her mother; he was running from a home filled with shouting. At the library, they found peace — and each other.

Maya would underline words in borrowed books and leave sticky notes in the margins:

“Halcyon” — a word she used to describe their summer afternoons.

“Vellichor” — the strange wistfulness of old bookstores.

And Elliot would reply with his own:

“Sonorous” — because her laugh had depth.

“Petrichor” — the smell of rain after heartbreak.

Until one day, the notes stopped. And so did they.

Back in the bookstore, Elliot cleared his throat. “I thought about reaching out. A hundred times. A thousand. But I figured if you wanted to find me, you’d write me a word.”

Maya lowered her gaze. “I did. I just never sent it.”

He smiled gently. “Can I ask… why?”

The question hovered like dust in sunlight. There were a thousand reasons. Life. Pain. Distance. But she told him the truth:

“I was scared the words wouldn’t be enough.”

They walked out together, into the golden dusk of their hometown.

He told her he still wrote — stories, poetry, even the occasional bad song. She told him she ran a book club in the city and still dog-eared pages despite people’s protests.

“You never changed,” he said.

Maya turned to him. “I did. I just hoped some words would stay the same.”

He stopped. “So tell me — what’s your favorite word today?”

She didn’t answer right away.

Instead, she dug into her purse, pulled out a folded piece of paper, worn at the creases. She handed it to him.

He opened it. One word. In her handwriting:

“Return.”

He looked at her.

“I never stopped missing you,” she whispered. “I just didn’t know how to turn the page.”

Elliot reached for her hand, just like he used to when they were young and unsure but always honest.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Maybe some stories aren’t meant to end. Maybe they’re just… waiting for the right chapter.”

Epilogue — One Year Later

The chapel was small, wrapped in ivy and soft golden light.

Friends gathered not just to witness a wedding, but a reunion of hearts.

Time had passed, but the love between them felt timeless.

Maya stood in white, calm but glowing, like pages about to be read.

Elliot waited at the altar, his fingers trembling with memory.

No vows were written the usual way — they had done that already, in books, notes, and glances.

Instead, they chose ten words. Ten moments. Ten memories.

“Solace,” Maya began, voice steady. “Because your silence still comforted me.”

“Halcyon,” Elliot followed. “For every calm we created together.”

Laughter echoed when they both said “Ephemeral” — their first shared favorite.

• Guests listened like it was poetry. Because it was.
• They spoke of rainstorms and old novels, of pain and healing.
• Each word a thread, binding their story back together.
• Maya paused at her final word, eyes glassy, heart full.
• “My favorite word today,” she said, turning to Elliot,

“Is ‘Us.’”

• The room stood still, like even time was listening.
• Elliot reached for her hand and smiled. “Forever,” he whispered.
• No grand speeches. Just truth, written between the lines of their lives.
• And so, with tears and soft smiles, they began the chapter they never stopped believing in.