Sapere

Chapter 5: Where the Fireflies Wait

Mae didn’t expect to see him again.

By seventeen, she had learned how to tuck memories into corners of her mind—the way you fold up old maps of places you know you’ll never visit again. She stopped checking the bridge every morning. She stopped waiting for letters. She lived her life like people were supposed to: moving forward.

Or at least pretending to.

Summer came heavy and sweet that year. The days stretched lazy and hot, and Willow Creek smelled like honeysuckle and river mist. Mae worked more hours at the library, saving every paycheck for college applications and half-formed dreams of anywhere but here.

She told herself she was okay.

She almost believed it.

Until one Friday night in July, when the past collided into the present with all the force of a forgotten wish.

---

It was the fireflies that led her to him.

Mae hadn’t meant to end up at the riverbank that night. She had gone out for a walk to clear her head after another fight with her mom about money and futures and whether Mae was dreaming too big. The air was thick and buzzing, and the town was lit up for the summer festival, but Mae wanted no part of it.

She found herself wandering down familiar paths, across the bakery parking lot, past the old library, down the narrow dirt trail framed by weeping willows.

And there, at the collapsed bridge where the world used to begin and end, she saw him.

Leo.

Older.

Taller.

Different.

But still unmistakably him.

He was sitting on the broken edge of the bridge, tossing pebbles into the river like no time had passed at all.

For a moment, Mae couldn’t move.

He turned, sensing her, and their eyes locked across the dark.

Neither of them spoke.

The fireflies blinked between them, tiny floating stars.

---

Mae swallowed hard and forced herself forward.

Her sneakers crunched on the gravel. Her heart thudded in her ears.

When she reached the bridge, she stopped just short of touching distance.

“Hey,” she said, voice almost breaking.

Leo smiled—not the big, reckless grin she remembered, but something smaller. Softer.

“Hey, Mae.”

The river murmured beneath them.

“I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” he said.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” she replied.

He nodded like he understood the weight in both sentences.

Mae dropped down onto the wood beside him. It groaned under their weight, but held.

Up close, she could see the differences. His jawline was sharper, his hands more calloused. He wore a threadbare denim jacket, and there were new scars she didn’t recognize.

But his eyes—the same stormy gray-blue—were exactly as she remembered.

“I heard about your grandma,” Mae said softly.

Leo nodded, picking at a splinter in the wood. “She passed last winter.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Silence stretched between them, not uncomfortable, but careful, like a bridge rebuilt too fast.

After a moment, Leo reached into his jacket and pulled out a crumpled paper heart.

It was old and worn, the edges frayed, the ink faded.

He handed it to her without a word.

Mae unfolded it carefully.

Some things survive anyway.

She blinked hard against the sting in her eyes.

“I never stopped missing you,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear it.

Mae clutched the paper heart in her fist, pressing it against her chest.

“Me either.”

---

They sat on the bridge until the fireflies outnumbered the stars.

They talked about everything and nothing.

Leo told her about working odd jobs in nearby towns, about sleeping on couches and trying to stay out of trouble.

Mae told him about the library, about her college plans, about how sometimes she felt like she was made of all the things she couldn’t say.

“You ever wonder what would’ve happened if…things were different?” he asked at one point, his voice low.

“All the time,” she admitted.

“But they weren’t.”

“No,” she agreed. “They weren’t.”

The river flowed on, uncaring.

---

Before they parted that night, Leo walked her back to the edge of town.

When they reached the bakery, Mae hesitated.

“I’m glad you came back,” she said.

“Me too.”

She wanted to kiss him.

God, she wanted it so badly it hurt.

But something in the air told her not to. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Instead, she hugged him tightly, breathing in the scent of river water and old wood smoke clinging to his jacket.

He hugged her back, fierce and desperate.

Then he stepped away, hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

“I’ll find you again,” he said.

“You better,” she said, trying to smile through the ache.

And then he was gone, swallowed by the night.

---

Mae walked home with fireflies trailing behind her like tiny blessings.

She didn’t know what would happen next.

She didn’t know if Leo would stay, or if life would pull them apart again.

But for the first time in a long time, she believed in something.

Not forever.

Not promises.

Just… possibilities.

And sometimes, that was enough.