Sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, I flipped through my high school album, each page releasing the faint scent of dust and memories. There I was at seventeen, smiling under my senior quote, \u201cLove is a two-person job,\u201d which felt naive now\u2014until my eyes found Chad Barns. He had been my high school love, the one I left scented notes for, only to have him vanish without a word before graduation. For years, I wondered what I\u2019d done wrong.<\/p>\n
That night, Lora, my best friend, dragged me to our reunion despite my reluctance. The gym was lit with string lights and buzzing with laughter, and then I saw him\u2014older, familiar, smiling like he was relieved to see me. Lora whisked me away, warning me not to talk to him, but later I slipped outside to the old oak bench. That\u2019s where Chad found me, and we stumbled through small talk until he mentioned a letter I\u2019d supposedly ignored.<\/p>\n
I never got that letter. His face shifted as Lora appeared, and Chad revealed she had told him I wasn\u2019t interested. Lora\u2019s pale expression and whispered confession\u2014jealousy\u2014hit like a punch. She had intercepted the letter, keeping us apart. The betrayal was sharp, but I asked her to leave. Chad and I stood there, realizing we\u2019d both believed the other didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t try to rewrite history right then, but we didn\u2019t walk away either. We sat on that bench, talking until the lights dimmed. Two people who had lost decades to a lie, finally sharing the truth. Maybe love really was a two-person job\u2014one we were just now getting the chance to begin again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, I flipped through my high school album, each page releasing the faint scent of dust and memories. There I was… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n