The Old Bench

By: [Rich Flower]

The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the earth still smelled like a memory. Wet leaves clung to the ground, and puddles shimmered on the winding path that led through the old city park. Emily walked slowly, her shoes making soft sounds against the brick walkway, a folded umbrella in one hand and a tug of hesitation in the other.

She hadn’t come here in years.

Not since she and Daniel had stopped meeting.

Not since life—messy, unspoken, and inconvenient—had carved space between them.

But today, something had pulled her back. A quiet ache. An unfinished sentence in the back of her mind. Or maybe just the kind of day where old ghosts feel heavier in the air.

And then she saw it—the bench.

Same wood, same curve in the backrest. The paint was chipped now, and one of the legs leaned ever so slightly, but it stood. As if waiting. As if it, too, had remembered.

She walked over and sat down, slowly. A breath escaped her lips she didn’t know she was holding.

That’s when she saw the book—lying gently on the seat beside her.

Before she could touch it, a voice spoke.

“Didn’t expect to find someone else sitting here.”

She turned.

Daniel.

Twelve years. And still, somehow, everything.

He was a little older, yes. His jaw more defined. The faintest hint of grey near his temples. But his eyes… those were the same. The kind that didn’t just look at you—they read you.

He gave her a crooked smile. Not wide, not bold. Just enough to say, I remember, too.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, her voice quiet.

“Too long,” he replied, stepping forward.

“Mind if I sit?”

She gestured toward the empty space between them.

“It was always your side of the bench.”

They sat in silence for a while.

Only the rustle of wet leaves and the occasional chirp of a bird disturbed the space between them.

“I didn’t know you still came here,” Emily finally said.

“I don’t,” Daniel replied.

“Not usually. But today… I don’t know. Something pulled me back.”

She smiled faintly.

“Same.”

The words lingered, filling the air with questions neither dared ask just yet.

There had always been something between them—not quite love, not quite friendship.

Something gentler, more fragile. A maybe.

They talked.

At first about small things: how the park looked the same, how the seasons had passed, how strange it was that twelve years could feel like twelve minutes in the right kind of silence.

Then came the deeper truths.

“I thought of calling you once,” Daniel admitted, staring ahead.

“But I didn’t know if you’d want to remember… or forget.”

“I never forgot,” Emily said.

Her voice didn’t tremble, but her fingers did.

“I just didn’t know what to do with the memory.”

Another silence. But this time, not uncomfortable.

Just real.

“Do you ever wonder what might’ve happened if we’d tried?” he asked, looking down at the book she still hadn’t opened.

She nodded slowly.

“All the time. But sometimes I think we weren’t meant to finish—just to begin each other.”

He looked at her now. Not the way someone looks at a stranger from their past.

But the way someone looks at a part of themselves they’d misplaced.

“Maybe we don’t need to finish anything,” he said.

“Maybe all we need is one more beginning.”

The streetlamps flickered on, casting soft halos over the wet pavement.

Time, as always, kept walking.

But for a moment, they didn’t.

They sat together until the sky faded into soft grey.

No promises. No regrets. Just presence.

As they stood to leave, Emily looked down at the book.

“Leave it here,” she said.

“If we both come back tomorrow, maybe it’ll still be waiting.”

Daniel smiled.

“And if we don’t?”

“Then the bench will remember for us.”

They walked away—not as strangers, and not quite as lovers.

But as two people who had finally paused long enough to say what mattered.

And behind them, the old bench stood still—quiet, loyal, eternal.

Like memory.