“I’ll wait for you on the other side of the room.”

The ballroom was full of music and expensive perfume. Laughter floated through the air like champagne bubbles, and you were in your usual corner, the one where you could observe without being part of it. Where the world danced, and you could think of him.

The dress was beautiful, though you wouldn’t have chosen it yourself. Your aunt insisted it was “perfect for a respectable young lady at an important event.” And, strangely, it was. It fit you delicately, without pretension, as if it knew you didn’t need more than that to shine.

You kept yourself entertained watching the couples twirl, sometimes wishing to be among them, and at other times just wishing to go home with a cup of tea. Someone seemed to notice you and took a step in your direction. You lowered your gaze. Pretended not to see. Took a deep breath.

And then you felt something.

Like a change in the room’s temperature.

You lifted your eyes.

And there he was. Laurie.

Standing in the doorway, as if the entire ball didn’t deserve his attention. As if he had crossed an ocean and an eternity just to see this moment. His gaze scanned the place like a patient scanner, but it stopped the moment he saw you.

He didn’t smile, not yet.

He just looked at you.

With that glow that only those who have read your soul in letters written under the moon have. With the restrained nostalgia of someone who has kept every word of yours as if it were a relic.

And you, for a second, stopped breathing. Because his hair was a little longer, and his stance a little firmer. But he was still Laurie. Your Laurie.

Both of you wanted to run. Wanted to shout, to joke like before, to ask a thousand things at once. But neither of you did. Because you weren’t children anymore. You weren’t on the March’s porch, throwing laughter into the wind. The world was bigger now. More demanding. More elegant.

So he just tilted his head with a half-smile —the one he used when he wrote something in your letters that he knew would make you smile and with that silent gesture, he said it all.