Last for a Lifetime

Love can touch just one time, and last for a lifetime

The bell above the door of “Second Glance,” Elara’s tiny second-hand bookshop, gave a soft, weary jingle. Outside, a relentless February drizzle greyed the world, turning the cobblestone street into a dark river. Inside, the air was warm and thick with the scent of old paper, bergamot tea, and the quiet solace Elara had carefully cultivated. It was a sanctuary, but on days like this, a week before Valentine’s Day, it felt more like a fortress against a world awash in red and coupled-up excitement she couldn’t share.

She was lonely. It wasn’t a sharp, desperate loneliness, but a deep, familiar ache, like the phantom pain of a missing limb. Five years had passed since her world—a world of shared dreams and soft laughter with a man named Leo—had quietly dissolved. He’d left for a job overseas, and the promised letters had dwindled, the video calls grew strained, and the future they’d painted together faded like watercolor in the rain. Now, at thirty-two, Elara felt she’d become a curator of other people’s stories, both in her books and in a peculiar side-habit she’d developed.

Elara was a keeper of lost valentines.

It started accidentally two years prior. Tucked inside a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice, she’d found a heartfelt, handwritten love letter, never sent. Touched by its vulnerability, she’d kept it. Then another appeared in a cookbook, another in a volume of poetry. She began actively looking, and they found her: notes in margins, sealed envelopes used as bookmarks, desperate confessions and tender vows pressed between pages like fragile flowers. She stored them in a beautiful lacquered box under the counter, each a ghost of a heart’s intention.

The day before Valentine’s Day, a man entered the shop. The drizzle clung to his dark wool coat, and he brought in a gust of cold air and a faint, clean scent of sandalwood. He had kind, crinkled eyes and an apologetic smile. “Sorry for the damp,” he said, his voice a warm rumble.

“It’s quite all right,” Elara replied, her standard gentle smile in place. “Looking for anything in particular?”

“Just browsing,” he said. “I’m new in town. Needed a refuge from apartment hunting.”

His name was Sam, he was a woodworker restoring furniture, and he had a way of asking questions that wasn’t polite small talk but genuine curiosity. He asked about the shop’s history, the oldest book she had, and what she loved most about stories. As he spoke, he ran a gentle hand over a row of book spines, a touch so reverent it made Elara’s own fingertips tingle. When he left an hour later, buying a well-loved book on shipbuilding, Elara felt a strange, quiet hum in the air, as if a forgotten chord had been gently struck.

Valentine’s Day dawned bright and cold. The shop was quiet. Elara busied herself arranging a small display of romance novels with a wry smile, her lacquered box of lost letters feeling heavier than usual under the counter. She was reminiscing about a Valentine’s long ago—a picnic Leo had planned in a snowy park, his nose turning red from the cold—when the bell jingled.

Sam was back. He looked slightly nervous, holding a small, tasteful paper bag. “I brought you a peace offering,” he said, setting the bag on the counter. “For subjecting you to my endless questions yesterday.”

Inside were not the expected chocolates, but a small, exquisite wooden bookmark. It was crafted from a single piece of cherrywood, sanded to a silken finish, its top carved into the delicate, intricate shape of a forget-me-not flower.

“It’s beautiful,” Elara breathed, genuinely astonished. “You made this?”

He nodded. “Wood tells stories, too. In its grain, its knots. This one felt hopeful.”

Their conversation flowed even more easily than the day before. He asked about her collection of lost valentines, and for the first time, she showed someone the box. She read him a few lines from a harmless, sweet one: “My dearest, you are more special to me than a thousand sunny days…”

Sam listened intently, then said, “It’s sad, but also beautiful. That moment of courage, of love, was captured, even if it never arrived. You’re preserving a kind of pure hope.”

His understanding unlocked something in her. She found herself talking, not about Leo specifically, but about the quiet aftermath of faded hopes, the fear that her best chapters were behind her. Sam didn’t offer platitudes. He simply said, “I think the most beautiful furniture is often the repaired piece. The Japanese have a practice called kintsugi—mending broken pottery with gold lacquer. The break becomes part of its history, not something to hide.”

Later, as he prepared to leave, he seemed to gather his courage. “Elara, I know it’s short notice, and it’s a loaded day… but would you have dinner with me? Not a grand Valentine’s dinner, just… food. Between two people who appreciate good stories and well-made things.”

The excitement that fluttered in her chest was terrifying and wonderful. She heard herself say yes.

The little Italian restaurant he chose was noisy and warm, draped with fairy lights, not a single red heart in sight. They shared a bottle of wine and a plate of pasta, and talked for hours. Elara learned he’d loved and lost, too, that he’d moved here seeking a fresh start for his craft and his spirit. He made her laugh with tales of disastrous furniture restoration, and she captivated him with stories of the eccentric customers who frequented her shop.

Walking back to her doorstep under a blanket of stars, the cold air felt charged. Outside her flat, they paused.
“I had a really wonderful time, Sam,” she said, her breath a soft cloud between them.
“So did I, Elara.” He reached out, his thumb gently brushing her cheek. The touch was electric, a silent question. “More wonderful than I’d even hoped.”
He leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to retreat. She didn’t. The kiss was soft, a tentative, perfect beginning. It tasted of wine, cold air, and a future she’d dared not imagine.
“Goodnight, darling,” he whispered against her lips, the new endearment feeling astonishingly natural.
“Goodnight,” she whispered back.

That kiss was a turning point. Sam became a part of her landscape. He’d appear at the shop with a fresh-baked pastry or a curious piece of wood he thought she’d like. He built her a stunning new display shelf, the wood grain flowing like a river across the wall. He listened, he remembered, he adored her in a way that felt steady and deep, not as a flawless idol, but as a whole, real person—special for her strength, her kindness, her quiet humor.

One rainy afternoon, months later, they were curled on her sofa, her head on his shoulder. She was telling him about Leo, finally giving the ghost a name and a shape. “I think I was afraid that by letting that old love go, I was admitting it never mattered. And that by hoping for something new, I was being naive.”

Sam took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “What if,” he said softly, “you’re not letting it go, but making room for it on a different shelf? It’s part of your story, Elara. It helped make you who you are. The woman I…” He stopped, smiling. “The woman I am completely crazy about.”

A year to the day after their first dinner, on a crisp, golden autumn afternoon, Sam suggested a picnic. He led her to the very park she’d once reminisced about with Leo, but now the leaves were blazing with color. He spread a blanket under a giant oak and unpacked a feast.

“Do you remember,” he asked, as they ate, “that lost valentine you read me? The one about a thousand sunny days?”
“Of course,” she smiled.
“It stayed with me.” He set down his glass, his expression turning uncharacteristically serious. “Elara, being with you feels like I’ve been given a thousand sunny days, and the hope for a thousand more. You are my most beautiful, unexpected story.”

He stood up, then knelt on the blanket before her, pulling a small wooden box from his pocket. Inside, nestled on velvet, was a ring. The band was polished rose gold, but its centrepiece was a slender, raw diamond, uncut in a traditional sense, its surface a landscape of delicate, frost-like facets. It was nestled between two finely carved wooden leaves of cherrywood, sealed to last a lifetime.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Strong, natural, uniquely beautiful, with a history that only makes you shine brighter. Will you build a life with me? Will you marry me, Elara?”

Tears of pure joy streamed down her face. The old, lonely ache was gone, filled to overflowing with a radiant, sure warmth. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, a thousand times yes.”

They were married the following spring in the bookshop, under garlands of fairy lights and ivy. Sam’s vows mentioned her “heart like a well-stocked library,” and hers praised his hands that could “both mend broken wood and hold my heart so perfectly.” As he kissed his bride, their friends showered them not with rice, but with tiny, fragrant wood shavings.

Now, two years later, Elara stood in their sun-drenched kitchen of the little house they’d bought together. She was preparing a simple dinner, humming. On the windowsill, the morning’s surprise from Sam—a single peony in a vase—glowed like a red ember. She heard his key in the door, his familiar footstep in the hall. He came in, smelling of sawdust and fresh air, and wrapped her in a tight, warm hug from behind, nuzzling her neck.
Hello} honey,” he murmured.
She turned in his arms, smiling up at him. “Long day, darling?”
“Better now.” He kissed her forehead. “I finished the cradle.”
A fresh wave of joy washed over her. She took his hand and placed it on the gentle swell of her stomach. “She’s kicking. Saying hello to her daddy.”

The wonder that broke over Sam’s face was everything. He knelt, speaking softly to her belly, his words promises of love and safety. Later, after dinner, they sat on the couch, Elara’s feet in Sam’s lap. She held the little lacquered box of lost valentines.

“I think,” she said softly, “it’s time. Our hopes found us. Maybe it’s time to let these go, send their hope back into the world.” She opened it, not with sadness, but with a sense of peaceful completion.

Sam picked up the one on top, the one she’d read to him that first Valentine’s Day. He unfolded it. As he read, a strange, tender smile touched his lips. He looked at the back, where Elara had never thought to check.
“Elara,” he said, his voice hushed. “Look.”

He pointed to the very bottom corner of the back page. There, in tiny, faded letters, was an inscription: “For my Elara, my forever Valentine. All my dreams are with you. -Leo”

A quiet shock, soft as a moth’s wing, brushed her soul. It wasn’t a lost valentine to a stranger. It was hers. A letter Leo had written, had tucked into a book she must have sold in her grief-stricken purge of their shared life. It had journeyed out into the world and found its way back to her, a ghost finally laying itself to rest.

She felt no pang for Leo, only a profound sense of a circle closing. That chapter hadn’t been meaningless; it had been a prelude, a path that led, however painfully, to this moment, to this man.

Sam didn’t look threatened. He understood. He gently took the letter, walked to their fireplace, and struck a match. He held the corner of the paper until it caught, then placed it in the grate. They watched as the old words, the old promises, turned to ash and smoke, their essence released.

He came back to the couch and gathered her into his arms, his strong hand splayed protectively over her stomach where their future, their greatest shared dream, grew. The last fragment of her past drifted up the chimney, and in its place was the solid, breathing reality of Sam’s heart beating against hers, a rhythm of love found, love built, love that had arrived, not lost, but perfectly, wonderfully on time.

Entry for: "Valentine Tales Contest" 
Total:2300 words