This is the third time I’ve seen him.

Same café. Same chair. Same wall full of stories behind him, like someone tried to wallpaper time. I don’t even think he sees them anymore. Or maybe he sees right through them.

He eats slow, like he’s dragging it out. Soup, a chunk of bread, a tiny glass of red. He always has that bottle of sparkling water, but I’ve never seen him open it.

Today, I sat two tables over, closer than usual. I brought a book to make it look casual, but I kept glancing up. Couldn’t help it.

There’s this one photo right above his head—black and white, a woman at a train station holding a letter in one hand, waving with the other. She’s smiling, but her eyes look like they’re not sure if goodbye means forever.

I think that’s the photo he talks to when he thinks no one’s listening.

At one point, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Yellowed, creased at the edges like it’s been opened and closed a hundred times. He laid it next to his plate like it was part of the meal. Didn’t open it. Just sat there staring at it while his soup went cold.

And then, just before he left, he did something different.

He turned and looked directly at me.

Not just a glance. It was like he knew I’d been watching this whole time. Like he’d been waiting for me to finally notice enough.

He nodded once, slow and heavy, then walked out—leaving the letter behind.

I didn’t touch it right away. I waited until the waiter cleared the dishes.

Then I leaned over and read the first line.

‘My Dearest Caspian,’

The words were faded, the ink a soft brown. It was a love letter, old and worn, filled with promises and longing. I read on, my heart aching with each word. The woman, named Seraphina, wrote of dreams, of a future together, of a love that defied distance.

But the letter ended abruptly, mid-sentence, like the writer had been interrupted. There was no closing, no signature. Just a fragment of a promise, frozen in time.

I looked up at the black and white photo. Seraphina. Caspian. It was clear now. The man at the table, he was Caspian. And he was still waiting.

The next day, I returned to the café, hoping to see him again. I needed to know more. I needed to understand. But he wasn’t there.

I asked the waiter, a young man with kind eyes, about the regular who sat by the story wall.

“Oh, Mr. Caspian,” he said, his voice soft. “He’s been coming here for years. Ever since… well, ever since she left.”

“Left?” I asked.

“Years ago,” the waiter said. “She was supposed to come back, but she never did. He still waits for her letters, for her return. He comes here, to this café, because they used to meet here. It’s their place.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

He shook his head. “No one does. He never talks about it. Just sits there, reads his letter, and waits.”

I felt a wave of sadness wash over me. Caspian’s devotion was both beautiful and heartbreaking. He was trapped in a moment, a memory, a hope that had long since faded.

I decided to try a different approach. I started visiting the café every day, hoping to catch him. I sat at the same table, close to the story wall, reading my book, pretending to be absorbed, but always keeping an eye out for him.

One afternoon, he walked in, his shoulders slumped, his steps slow. He looked older, more tired.

He sat down at his usual table, his eyes fixed on the photo of Seraphina. He pulled out the letter, unfolded it, and began to read, his lips moving silently.

I couldn’t bear it anymore. I walked over to his table.

“Mr. Caspian,” I said, my voice gentle.

He looked up, startled. His eyes, a faded grey, held a mixture of confusion and weariness.

“I read your letter,” I said. “Seraphina’s letter.”

He didn’t say anything, just stared at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have. But I wanted to understand.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze returning to the photo. “She was supposed to come back,” he whispered. “She promised.”

“What happened?” I asked.

He sighed, a deep, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of years. “She went to visit her family, far away. She said she’d write, that she’d be back soon. But the letters stopped. And then… nothing.”

“Have you ever tried to find her?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know where to start. And after so long… I didn’t know if I wanted to know.”

A sudden thought struck me. “The letter,” I said. “It has a postmark, doesn’t it?”

He looked at me, his eyes widening. He hadn’t thought of that.

We examined the letter together. The postmark was faded, but legible. A small town, far away.

“We can find her,” I said. “We can find out what happened.”

And so, we did. We embarked on a journey, Caspian and I, to a town frozen in time, a place where memories lingered like whispers in the wind.

The twist was this: Seraphina did try to return. She had been involved in a train accident, and suffered from amnesia. She had built a new life, a new family, but always carried a sense of loss. When Caspian and Seraphina finally met again, it wasn’t a romantic rekindling, but a tender reunion of two souls, each carrying their own scars. Seraphina had a daughter, who was a writer. She wrote the rest of the story, filling the gap of the missing years, and Caspian, finally at peace, found a new kind of love in this connection, through Seraphina’s daughter.

The message here is that even when hope seems lost, even when time has created chasms, the human spirit has a remarkable capacity for resilience and connection. Sometimes, closure isn’t about reclaiming the past, but about finding peace in the present.

Don’t give up on searching for answers, and cherish the connections you form along the way. Your journey might lead you to unexpected places and people, and bring you a new kind of peace.

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