The reunion was coming.
A flyer slipped into my mailbox like a ghost from another life. "Twenty Years," it read, in thick block letters. As if time could be boxed up into clean numbers, wrapped in nostalgia, and served cold in a rented gym with watered-down drinks and too-loud music.
I tossed it on the counter and left it there. It stayed for days, then weeks--quietly judging me from beneath takeout menus and unopened bills. I didn't feel anything about it. Not excitement. Not dread. Just... nothing.
High school had been a blur. Some good times. Some long, forgettable stretches of awkwardness and silence. I'd moved on. Built a life. Paid bills. Faked contentment.
But then her name drifted into my thoughts.
Julia Whitman.
That girl.
The one I never had, but always wanted. The one who haunted the my memory the thought what if.
Back then, she was untouchable in a quiet way. Petite, quick-footed from tennis, always in those damn skirts that swayed too much when she walked. Her shirts clung like secrets, and her laugh--God, that laugh--was always just out of reach.
I never told her how I felt. Never made the move. I watched from a distance, convinced she was out of my league.
Years later, someone told me she used to like me too. Said she'd wondered why I never tried. That truth settled in me like a bruise I kept pressing, just to feel it again.
So now, two decades later, here was this reunion. Full of ghosts and half-buried regrets.
I didn't give a damn about seeing anyone else.
But her?
Maybe.
I finally gave in. Clicked the RSVP link. Didn't overthink it. Just tapped "Yes" and shut the laptop like I'd just been caught watching porn.
***
Later that night, I searched social media for her.
There she was.
Her profile had aged like she had--elegantly. A few photos of her at charity events, a glass of wine in her hand, a smile that hadn't dulled. Her eyes were softer now, but that same spark was still in them. The kind that made you wonder what she was thinking when she looked at you.
I followed her. Waited.
Then I DM'd her.
Hey, didn't know you were on here. That reunion invite dragged me down memory lane. Hope you're doing well.
Harmless. Friendly. I didn't expect a reply, not right away. Maybe not ever.
So I lingered. Scrolled through her profile. Casual curiosity. That's what I told myself.
A few photos down, there was a younger girl--dark hair, long legs, a smile too sharp for her age. Bikini shots by a pool.
Eva.
Her daughter.
The tag led to her own page. Wide open, of course--youth has no privacy filter. Nineteen. College freshman. Something about photography and poetry in her bio. A little too practiced in front of the lens. Pretty. Petite. She had her mother's bones, but she moved different--like she knew people were watching and she liked it.
I scrolled through a few of her posts. Bikini tops in the sun. Legs curled beneath her on white sheets. Pouty lips. Glimpses of skin.
It felt wrong.
But I looked.
Mirror selfies. Late-night outfits and captions that flirted with boldness.
And I hated myself for it.
Because I wasn't here for her daughter.
I was here for Julia.
For the woman I'd wanted half a lifetime ago.
Not the girl half my age who knew how to smirk into a camera.
I closed the app. Told myself I wouldn't go back.
Julia replied a few days later.
"Didn't expect to hear from you, but I'm glad you reached out. That reunion's creeping up fast, huh?"
Short. Warm. Open enough to answer.
I smiled at the screen like a fool. Like it was her fingers on the keys.
We messaged here and there. Small talk at first--mutual friends, jobs, the strange ache of time. She told me she was divorced. "Happily," she added, with a winking emoji I didn't know how to interpret.
There was something flirtatious beneath her tone, though. Subtle at first
We kept talking.
What started as simple reunion talk--classmates, yearbooks, the inevitable what-ever-happened-to's--shifted into something softer. More personal. Julia, began asking questions no one had asked me in a long time.
"Are you happy?"
"Do you ever think about who you used to be?"
"What do you miss most from back then?"
I answered honestly, more than I meant to. There's something about texting in the quiet of your own place--lights low, music just a whisper in the background--that makes honesty feel easier.
I told her about how tired I'd become. Not physically. Just... tired of surface. Tired of pretending every day was enough. Tired of wanting things I never let myself name.
She replied:
"I always thought you were different. Even in high school. You never tried too hard. You weren't loud like the others. But you watched everything. You felt more than you said."
I read that twice.
"You noticed that?" I typed.
"Of course I did."
There was a pause after that. A longer one. Enough for me to stare at the screen, waiting for the typing bubble to come back.
When it did, it was one line.
"You had this way of making a room quieter just by walking into it."
That stopped me. Because no one had ever said that. They knew something about me.
Something real.
We started talking at night more. Always after ten. Always when the world had quieted enough for the voices inside us to speak freely.
"Did you ever think about me back then?"
Her question came sudden, late one night.
I hesitated. But what was the point of lying now?
"All the time."
"You never said anything."
"You were untouchable."
"I wasn't."
The honesty cut both ways. There was pain beneath it. Longing twisted in with years of missed chances.
Then she asked:
"What would you have done, if you did tell me?"
The air went still.
I typed slowly, letting each word settle.
"I would've kissed you behind the bleachers after practice."
"Put my hand on your back just to feel how warm you were."
"Told you I'd been wanting to touch you for years."
Another long pause.
Then:
"I think I would've let you."
My pulse kicked harder. Not lust. Not yet. Just that ache--old, slow-burning--finally being named.
"We're not kids anymore," I wrote.
"I know."
"So why does it still feel like we're passing notes under the table?"
"Because we're finally saying the things we were too scared to say then."
The next night, we didn't start with hello.
We started with silence. Just that quiet presence--knowing the other was there, both of us typing, deleting, retyping. Waiting for one of us to go first.
She finally did.
"I wonder sometimes what you look like now."
My chest tightened--not from shame, but that strange vulnerability that comes with being truly seen. Wanting to be wanted... and not knowing if you're still enough to be.
"Older," I replied.
"Obviously."
"That's not what I meant."
There was something under her words. Something more than curiosity. A reaching. A slow undoing of the space between us.
I let the silence stretch. Then I opened the camera.
Not seductive. Just honest. I snapped a picture--my face, the light of the room casting half of it in shadow. A little stubble, eyes tired, shirt tugged open at the collar. Nothing polished. Just me.
I sent it.
And immediately regretted it.
Then her message came in.
"You still have that quiet in your eyes. Like you're always carrying something you won't say."
