Author's note

These stories were never meant to be told.

But once you read them, they’ll stay with you.

so lets start The story...........

As fireworks lit the sky I wondered why a new year always arrived carrying old memories. The surrounding cheers were loud, but my thoughts were louder.

 Why??

Why was it always me?

Six years ago, at exactly this time, I was the happiest person alive. Not because my life was perfect, but because my heart was hopeful. It raced that night—not with fear or sadness, but with the quiet thrill of possibility. I was finally going to confess my feelings to the person I had loved in silence for so long.

The future felt wide open then. Endless. I truly believed some moments were meant to last forever.

But forever, I learned, is fragile.

One pause. One unsaid sentence. One moment of hesitation—and everything slipped gently into the past without making a sound. There was no dramatic goodbye, no clear ending. Just time moving forward while my heart stayed behind

That day—

“Alex, I want to say something to you,” I said, my voice barely steady, fingers curling into my palms as if they could hold my courage in place.

He looked at me, waiting. Not impatient. Not hurried. Just unaware of how much weight those few seconds carried for me.

The fireworks cracked open the sky behind us, bursts of color reflecting in his eyes. Everyone else was celebrating beginnings.

I was standing on the edge of one, terrified of what it might cost me.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time,” I continued, forcing a smile to hide the tremor in my chest. Every word felt heavier than the last. My heart was begging me to be honest, while my fear whispered all the reasons I shouldn’t be.

He nodded, encouraging me to go on.

And that was the moment.

The moment where I could have changed everything.

But instead, I paused.

Just for a second. Long enough for doubt to step in. Long enough for the noise around us to drown the truth I had carried for years. I swallowed the words that were ready to fall, replaced them with something safer, something smaller.

“Never mind,” I said softly. “It’s nothing important.”

He smiled, relieved, unaware. And the world moved on.

I smiled back, pretending my heart hadn’t just chosen

Sometimes I wonder—if I had found the courage to speak back then, maybe he would be here now. Not living in my memories, not echoing in every new year’s fireworks, but standing beside me, close enough to touch.

Instead, time loved

And I stayed there—holding a confession that never existed, learning too late how fragile forever can be.

Lost in his thoughts, my eyes drifted to the place where we had once sat years ago. For a moment, I thought I saw a shadow there—familiar, impossible. My heart skipped as I moved closer, but the space was empty. Just cold air and old echoes.

And then—

“Lariette… is that you?”

The voice.

The one I had carried with me through all these years. The one I had imagined in quiet moments and late nights. The one I never thought I’d hear again.

I turned slowly.

He was standing behind me.

Unchanged, and yet different in all the ways time insists on. For a second, the fireworks faded, the crowd dissolved, and it was just us—two people caught between what was and what could have been.

The past had found me.

Author's note

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Alex pov

I came here every year without telling myself why.

The same bench.

The same view of the sky where fireworks split open the night. I told myself it was just tradition, just habit—but I knew better. This was the place where I had let something slip away.

The bench was cold beneath me, the same one we had sat on years ago. Fireworks bloomed overhead, loud enough to cover the way my heart was failing to keep a steady rhythm.

She was beside me then.

Lariette.

I had rehearsed the words in my head a hundred times before that night. Simple words. Honest ones. Words that could have changed everything. I kept telling myself after this firework, after this laugh, after this moment.

Then she spoke first.

“Alex, I want to say something to you.”

My breath caught.

For a second, I thought—this is it. That she had found the courage I was still searching for. My hands clenched, my mind racing with the possibility that I wouldn’t have to be the first one to leap.

But she stopped.

When she said it was nothing important, the night went quiet in a way fireworks never could. I nodded, pretending I hadn’t been holding my breath. Pretending I hadn’t wanted her to finish.

I could have spoken then.

I should have.

The words were right there—pressed against my chest, burning to be said. I wanted to tell her that I felt it too. That every laugh, every shared silence, had already tied my heart to hers.

But fear is a careful thief.

It whispered that timing mattered. That waiting would be safer. That there would be another night, another moment, another chance.

So I stayed silent.

She smiled, and I smiled back, both of us pretending nothing had almost happened. When she finally left, the space beside me felt heavier than her presence ever had.

I remained on that bench long after the crowd thinned, watching the last sparks fade from the sky, realizing too late that courage delayed is still courage lost.

And every year since, I return to this place—wondering if she ever knew how close I came to saying her name like a confession.

I noticed her before she noticed me.

She was standing alone, watching the fireworks like they were asking her questions she didn’t want to answer.

 The crowd around her was loud, alive—but she wasn’t part of it. She never had been, not really. Even back then, she always existed a little apart from the noise.

For a second, I thought my memory was playing tricks on me.

Six years is a long time to carry a face in your head.

But it was her.

Lariette.

I hadn’t planned this moment. I hadn’t rehearsed her name. Still, it escaped me the second I was sure.

“Lariette… is that you?”

She turned slowly, like she was afraid the sound might disappear if she moved too fast. And when she looked at me, I saw it—the same eyes, older now, heavier. Eyes that had once tried to tell me something I hadn’t understood.

That night came back to me all at once.

The way her voice had trembled when she said my name.

The pause that followed.

The words she never finished—and the ones I never spoke.

I understood then that silence hadn’t been hers alone.

We had both been standing on the same edge, waiting for the other to jump.

The fireworks burst again above us, bright and familiar, just like they had six years ago. Time folded in on itself, and suddenly the distance between past and present felt fragile—like it could break with a single honest sentence.

I took a step closer.

All those years, I had wondered if she ever knew how close I came to confessing. If she ever felt what I had carried back to this bench, year after year.

Now she was here.

Not a memory. Not a regret.

Real.

My heart raced the same way it had back then, but this time I didn’t let the moment slip away.

Because some chances don’t return to haunt you.

They return to see if you’ve finally learned how to hold them.

“Lariette… is that you?”

For a second, she didn’t answer. She just looked at me, like she was trying to decide whether I was real or something her memories had created.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Alex.”

Hearing my name in her voice again felt unfamiliar—and achingly familiar at the same time.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” she added, glancing toward the bench, then back at me.

“I come every year,” I said before thinking.

Then, softer, more honest, “I guess I always have.”

She nodded, like that made sense. Like she had known all along.

We stood there awkwardly, the space between us filled with things neither of us had said six years ago. Fireworks burst overhead, but neither of us looked up this time.

“You look the same,” I said. It wasn’t entirely true—but it was close enough to what I meant.

She gave a small smile. “You don’t.”

Not unkindly. Just truthfully.

There was a pause. Another one of those pauses—the kind that used to scare me.

“I think about that night sometimes,” she said quietly. “More than I should.”

My chest tightened.

“So do I.”

Her eyes flickered to mine. “Really?”

“I never forgot it,” I said. “I never forgot… how close we were to saying something.”

She swallowed. “I thought it was just me.”

“It wasn’t,” I said immediately. “It never was.”

The words sat between us, fragile but real.

“I wanted to tell you,” I continued, my voice unsteady now. “That night. I was waiting for the right moment. I kept thinking there would be another chance.”

She looked away, blinking fast. “I thought if I stopped talking, you’d finish it for me.”

“I almost did.”

Almost.

That word hurt more than silence ever had.

She laughed softly, not out of humor, but recognition. “We were both cowards,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Just afraid.”

We fell quiet again. But this silence was different.

It wasn’t heavy. It wasn’t running away.

It was waiting.

I took a breath. The same bench. The same sky. But not the same mistake.

“Lariette,” I said, this time without hesitation, “can we sit?”

She looked at the bench. Then at me.

“Yes,” she said. “I think we should.”

And for the first time in six years, I felt like the moment wasn’t slipping away.

It was staying.

Author’s Note

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Anshikha was sitting quietly on the sofa, a novel resting in her hands.

Her eyes moved over the printed words, but her mind refused to focus. She read the same sentence again and again, yet its meaning slipped away every time. The story in the book felt distant, unreal—just like her own life. She was completely absent-minded, trapped in thoughts she could neither understand nor escape.

Her husband was at the office.

There was a time when his absence used to bother her, but not anymore. Even though he always cared for her, she had grown indifferent.

He checked on her health, reminded her about her medicines, worried when she stayed quiet for too long, and protected her in every way possible. Yet she never noticed any of it. She never tried to understand his feelings or the silent love behind his actions.

For her, he was just… there.

She closed the novel and placed it beside her. Leaning back against the sofa, she stared at the wall, her eyes blank.

Is this really my life?

Why do I feel so empty even when everything seems normal?

A strange hollowness lived inside her, as if something precious had been taken away from her without her knowing. Two years of her life felt like a locked door—no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember what lay behind it. That gap in her memories left her restless, uneasy, and scared, though she rarely admitted it to herself.

Suddenly, the loud sound of the doorbell broke the silence of the house.

She flinched, her heart skipping a beat.

“Who could it be?” she murmured, placing the novel aside as she slowly stood up. She walked toward the door, her steps hesitant for reasons she couldn’t explain.

when she opened it, a courier boy stood outside, holding a medium-sized box.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. Courier for Anshikha Sharma,” he said politely.

“That’s me,” she replied.

"Please sign here.”

She signed the paper and took the box from his hands.

“Who sent it?” she asked, frowning slightly.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. The sender’s details aren’t mentioned,” he answered.

She nodded quietly, thanked him, and closed the door.

For a moment, she just stood there, staring at the box in her hands. It felt strangely heavy—not because of its weight, but because of an unfamiliar fear slowly settling in her chest. Her heartbeat began to quicken, and a sense of uneasiness crawled over her skin.

As she turned the box around, her eyes suddenly froze.

The handwriting.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The name written on the box was painfully familiar. Her fingers began to tremble, and her heart skipped a beat.

No… this can’t be, she thought.

Fear crept deep into her chest. Her palms turned cold, and her mind spun with confusion. She knew that handwriting. She had seen it countless times before—on letters, notes, and pages filled with emotions she could no longer remember. It belonged to someone she had once been very close to… someone she had pushed out of her life without knowing why.

Her chest felt unbearably heavy as she walked back to the living room. She placed the box carefully on the table near the sofa and sat down slowly, her hands still shaking.

For a few seconds, she just stared at it.

Then, gathering all her courage, she reached out.

With trembling fingers, she slowly opened the box.

Inside, there was a letter.

The moment her eyes fell on it, her breathing became uneven. A sharp pain tightened in her chest, and her heart began to race violently, as if it were trying to escape.

Something inside her cracked.

And that was when everything began to fall apart…

Author’s Note

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