My love story

"When the Lilacs Bloomed Again"

It was always the scent of lilacs that brought her back.

Each spring, when the bushes in the town square bloomed, Ava found herself walking the old path, past the rusted bike racks and toward the bench under the maple tree. It wasn’t marked, but it might as well have been his memorial. This was where they fell in love. And this was where she last saw him.

Ten years. A decade had passed since Ben left. The pain had dulled, as time always promises, but never disappeared. It lingered like a scar — quiet, tender, but always present.

They were only twenty-two when they met, both new to town and broke in every way that counted. Ava had moved for a job that barely paid enough to cover rent; Ben was chasing music and working nights at the diner. He'd sing under his breath as he wiped tables, and she, always the last to leave, started humming along without realizing it.

That’s how it started. Not with fireworks — but harmony.

Their first date wasn’t really a date. He walked her home after a late shift and stopped to point out the stars. “We don’t look up enough,” he said. “The sky’s been watching us our whole lives, and we barely say hello.”

She laughed, not because it was funny, but because she was scared of how fast her heart responded.

They fell in love like the seasons changed — inevitable and unnoticed until the cold turned to warmth. Days melted into nights filled with music, shared silence, and dreams too fragile to speak aloud. He wrote songs about her but never played them in full. “Not until it’s perfect,” he’d say.

She never needed perfect.

But life, as it does, got in the way.

His mother got sick back home. He left with promises—calls, visits, letters. And at first, they came. Until they didn’t.

The last time she heard from him, he sent a song — raw and unfinished. It ended with her name, like a whisper in the wind. No explanation. No goodbye. Just silence that stretched years long.

People told her to move on. That he didn’t deserve her grief. That maybe he changed, or maybe he never really loved her.

But she knew better. Love like theirs doesn’t vanish. It just waits.

She tried, of course — to forget. Dated men who were kind, stable, even funny. But no one saw her the way he did — like she was the lyric he’d been waiting to write his whole life.

So each spring, when the lilacs bloomed, she returned to the bench. Not because she believed in miracles. But because love, real love, deserves remembering.

Today, the breeze carried the familiar scent. Ava sat, closing her eyes, letting herself ache just a little.

“Still sitting here without me?”

The voice was older, deeper, but unmistakable.

She turned.

Ben.

Time had changed him — gray at the temples, lines around eyes that once only knew laughter. But the way he looked at her? That hadn’t changed.

She stood, unsure whether to cry or hit him. Maybe both.

“I wrote you every month,” he said softly. “They were returned unopened. I called. Nothing.”

“My number never changed,” she replied, voice cracking.

His hands trembled. “My father found the letters, Ava. I think he... I think he tried to protect me. Or maybe punish me. I don’t know. But I never stopped loving you. Not for a second.”

Tears spilled silently. The years rushed back — all the birthdays, the loneliness, the hope she buried but never killed.

“I thought you left,” she whispered.

“I never did.”

He reached for her hand — gently, like asking permission.

And in that moment, under the maple tree, with lilacs in bloom and ten years behind them, Ava realized something simple and sacred:

Some love stories don’t end.
They just wait for the right season to return.