At first, they didn't sit too close. Words came slowly, measured and careful, like footsteps on uncertain ground. He asked about her favorite books. She asked if he always carried that restless look in his eyes. He joked that she stared at the ground too much; she retorted that he stared at people too much. They laughed not loudly, not often, but enough to begin loosening the edges of whatever weight they both carried.
Days turned into weeks. Each evening, the same weathered bench held their growing conversations. Sometimes they talked about nothing at all the weather, the stars, the little stray cat that sometimes prowled around their feet. Other times, without warning, the heavy truths slipped through. She admitted she often felt invisible, like the world would move on unchanged if she disappeared. He confessed he had spent years feeling like he was chasing something he couldn't name, only to end up lonelier than before.
Neither of them offered solutions. They didn't need to. It was enough just to have someone listening.
One night, after a longer silence than usual, she whispered, "That first thing you said to me… about being too lonely to die."
He glanced at her, surprised she'd brought it up.
She turned to face him fully, eyes reflecting the glow of the park lamps. "Maybe… maybe I don't want to die either. Not if it means I get to keep growing old with someone who makes me feel a little less heavy."
He didn't answer right away. He just smiled genuine, unguarded and in that moment, she finally smiled back. Not the half-smiles she had given before, but a real one, fragile yet unshaken.
And as the night settled in around them, the quiet of the park no longer felt like loneliness. It felt like the beginning of something that neither of them had been searching for, yet somehow had found.
Something worth growing old for.