Fireworks and Unsaid Words {end}

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.