At sixty-two, I was a literature teacher expecting another quiet December of grading papers and lukewarm tea. Then a student asked me about meaningful holiday memories and uncovered a story I had buried for forty years, my first love, Daniel, who disappeared without explanation one Christmas when we were seventeen.
A week later, that same student found an online post from a man searching for the girl he loved decades ago. The details matched my life exactly. It was Daniel. After years of silence, we met again in a small café glowing with holiday lights and finally spoke the truth about why he vanished and how time had reshaped us both.
Before we parted, he returned a locket I lost in high school, something he had kept safe all those years. We made no promises, only agreed to see what life might still offer.
At sixty-two, I learned that love stories do not always end, sometimes they simply wait.
