When I finally walked toward Brian, he spoke before I could. He clarified that he and Jess had not been together for years and that seeing the locket had stirred memories he thought he had buried. He confessed how quickly he had believed the rumor back then, and how he’d regretted it long after. We weren’t children anymore, and life had taken us far from who we’d once been, yet something familiar flickered between us. When he learned I now lived in New York, he smiled and said he did too—and asked if I would go on just one date with him. I hesitated only a moment before agreeing, teasing that he owed me a new locket to replace the one time had tarnished. He laughed, promising he would. And standing there beneath a sky much like the one from our youth, I felt—for the first time in years—that some stories don’t end where you think they do.
