From the bench to the beach - Chapter 1: The night everything changed--

Sofi had known for a while that something was coming. The phone calls had gotten shorter, their glances had begun to avoid each other, and Tom stopped showing up on Saturdays even though those used to be their days. However, that evening, he asked her out to meet at the old cinema. The place where he first held her hand.

When she arrived, she saw him immediately standing there. He wasn’t smiling. Her heart was pounding in her throat, but she did not run to him. She walked slowly and as their eyes met, she knew that this was the end. What she didn’t know was that something else would happen too.

“Let’s take a walk,” Tom said quietly.

They walked in silence for a long time, until suddenly Tom stopped by the riverbank. He pulled a small notebook from his coat; the one Sofi gave him for his birthday. He opened it and started to read. It was a poem. About her, about them, about how something beautiful can disappear even while you still love it. Sofi didn’t know what to say. Her tears fell quietly, and then, suddenly, Tom smiled.

“I know it’s over,” he said. “But I wanted to write this to be more than just a goodbye. I wanted it to be a memory you’ll want to keep forever.”

She just stood there, the lights of the bridge were reflecting in her tears, and for the first time, she didn’t feel anger or pain in what she was experiencing. She felt something clear. Something that perhaps happens only once in a lifetime. In addition, when they said goodbye, they were no longer the same people who had met at the old cinema.

Sallai Kata IX. H