the Bridge Between Then and Now

Every city has a bridge that remembers.

Ours stretched across the river like an old spine, its steel bones rusting gently under years of weather and stories.

We used to sit there every summer, you and I — legs dangling over the edge, sneakers grazing the air. We’d throw stones and make wishes we never said out loud, the kind that only make sense when you’re young enough to think time waits for you.

The bridge was our place. Our pause between everything else.

I hadn’t been back in years.

Until yesterday.

It wasn’t planned. I’d been driving home from a work trip when I saw the sign for the exit — Riverbend Crossing, half hidden by ivy. Something in me turned the wheel before my mind could argue.

The road was smaller than I remembered. The trees taller. The sky quieter.

When I parked by the riverbank, the smell hit me — that mix of wet metal, mud, and summer grass. It was like stepping into a memory I’d forgotten I still carried.

The bridge looked smaller too. But maybe that’s what growing up does — it makes everything you once thought infinite seem almost delicate.

I walked halfway across before I stopped. The boards creaked under my weight, and for a moment, I swore I could hear your laugh — sharp, bright, echoing from a decade ago.

We were sixteen the last time we came here.

You’d brought your father’s camera — the old film one you always carried around like it could save you. We took photos of everything: the graffiti, the chipped paint, the clouds that looked like spilled milk.

At sunset, you asked me if I believed people could stay connected, even after they drift apart.

I said I didn’t know. You smiled like you did.

That night, you made me promise to always chase the kind of life that made me feel alive. I promised — not realizing you were already planning to leave town for good.

You never told me.

I found out months later through a mutual friend. No goodbye, no letter — just a name that vanished into distance.

I tried to be angry, but mostly, I missed you.

Now, standing on the bridge again, I realized how much I’d changed — and how much I hadn’t.

The air was cool, the kind that bites a little at the end of summer. I closed my eyes and whispered into it:

“I kept the promise, you know.”

I didn’t expect an answer. But the wind shifted, and a small feather — white and frayed — floated past, catching on the railing.

For a second, it felt like the bridge exhaled.

I smiled. Maybe that was enough.

On my way back to the car, I saw someone had carved new initials into the wood. Two letters and a heart. The carving was fresh, the lines still raw.

It made me happy — the idea that the bridge kept collecting stories long after ours had ended.

Before I left, I took one of the old stones from the riverbank, the kind we used to skip across the water. I held it tight, then tossed it far into the current.

It made three soft skips before sinking — like punctuation.

Driving home, the world felt quieter, but not empty.

It’s strange — the way some people remain part of your landscape even when they’re long gone. You stop looking for them, but they’re still there, hidden in small corners of your life: the scent of rain, the hum of a song, the echo of laughter on a bridge.

Sometimes, healing isn’t about forgetting. It’s about returning, seeing what once broke you, and realizing it doesn’t anymore.

When I passed the city limits, the last bit of light bled out of the sky, and I whispered — not to the past, but to the space it left behind —

“I hope you found what you were looking for.”

Then I turned up the radio, rolled down the window, and let the wind take the rest.

The bridge was already behind me,

but for the first time,

so was the ache.