After the summer
378 Words
The bus hissed as it pulled away, leaving behind the scent of exhaust and a moment suspended in time.
Marshel stood there for a beat, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder, hair slightly tousled from the ride. Kobe stepped forward, sketchbook tucked under one arm, the folded letter in his back pocket. No words at first. Just a look. A deep one—like they were trying to memorize each other all over again.
Then she smiled. “Hey.”
He smiled back. “Hey.”
They hugged, and it felt both familiar and foreign—like trying on an old sweater after it’s been in storage. Still warm, but not quite the same.
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Later, they sat in his dorm room with the fan humming softly in the corner. She flipped through his sketchbook while he watched her, waiting.
“I missed this,” she said, pausing on a sketch of the sycamore tree. “You kept drawing.”
“You kept writing,” he said, pulling the folded letter from his pocket and handing it to her. “I thought maybe I should, too.”
She unfolded it gently, like it was something sacred.
> Dear Marshel,
I don’t know what we’ll be like after this summer. I don’t know if things will fit the way they used to. But I know that I’ve never wanted something to work more than I want us to.
If we’ve changed, that’s okay. Maybe we’re supposed to.
Just promise me we’ll keep choosing each other—even when it’s hard.
Yours, Kobe
When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes—but the soft kind. The kind that comes with relief.
“I do,” she said. “I promise.”
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The fall semester began with a quiet rhythm. They didn’t rush things. No declarations. No expectations. Just lunches on the campus lawn. Study sessions that turned into sketching and laughing. Letters still left in each other’s bags, sometimes silly, sometimes serious.
They were building something—not what they had before, but something new. Something real.
Because love, they were learning, isn’t just in the grand moments. It’s in the choosing. Again and again.
And every time they did, it mattered.
TO BE CONTINUED...
- Writer
