The flowers smelled fresh as the scent floated in the air. Delilah smiled into the wind as she heard the door open. “Come in,” she spoke softly. She heard footsteps and laughter as her grandchildren came running outside and into her arms. “How are my beautiful angels?” Delilah said to her two fair-haired granddaughters. They told their grandmother about their new Barbie dolls that their daddy had gotten them for their birthday.

“Come back inside, girls! It is time for dinner,” their mother called. The two girls strolled back inside as Delilah’s daughter came outside and hugged her mother. “Hey, Mom. How are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m doing well. It is a wonderful day for the girls, but you know what the date is,” Delilah said sadly.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I know you miss him,” her daughter replied. “Come inside. It’ll start to get dark soon.” Delilah nodded, and her daughter walked back inside the house.

The sun had set, and Delilah’s family had all gone to sleep. She tossed back and forth but no sleep came, so she walked to the bench that sat at the top of a small hill. Sitting there on that ugly wooden bench, with the stars out as bright as they did all those years ago.

It was a starry night. So bright that you think you can see the heavens above. They were so young. Too young to realize the rocky roads ahead, but too naive to care. They thought their love was eternal, but Delilah couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. They stared in wonder at the beautiful life they thought they had together, but it was all just pretend. A dream that they had to wake up from. A make-believe story that they tried to continue after the last page had already been turned.

Delilah could feel the metal under her and shifted herself on the uncomfortable bench. She remembered how they first met. He was selling ice cream to her younger brother on a sunny day in the middle of June. Delilah thought he was beautiful; golden hair that framed his strong face and soft blue eyes that drew her in. He wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing and ended up spilling ice cream on her new blouse. Delilah laughed at the memory of him turning deep red in embarrassment. He had even offered to pay for her dry cleaning, but she said it was just an old rag that she bought a million years ago. He apologized a hundred times after that and somehow convinced her it was a good idea to go out to dinner with him so he could “make up for it.” Delilah remembered having had no idea why she agreed to go out with a complete stranger, even if he was cute. She smiled at that memory too.

Delilah had pointed out a shooting star to him that night. He said he had never seen one before this. She wondered what the future would be like with him. “The sky is the limit,” Delilah had said. Well, she had no idea. She didn’t realize then that their love really was like the stars; it burned so brightly at first, but then exploded into a million pieces. Delilah had wanted to enjoy the beauty of the stars as they shined so bright because once the storm hits, and the clouds block any view that they have of the sky, all hope she had with him becomes just dust in the wind. She eventually realizes that what was there was just a flicker of light that had to fade. A flicker of light like the flicker of a star millions and millions of miles away.

Delilah remembered the exact moment she had fallen in love with him. It was three months after the ice cream incident. He had taken her to the beach, even though he knew she hated it. Delilah had protested once they got there, but he promised that she would have a good time. It was a Saturday night, but there weren’t that many people on the shore. They walked on the beach with their shoes off and she felt the warm sand as it seeped between her toes. Delilah kept tripping over her feet because she was so nervous. She didn’t even know why because it wasn’t her first time going out with him. She ended up stepping on a twig and falling before he could catch her. He looked at her in alarm, wondering if she was hurt, but she was just trying not to cry in embarrassment. Delilah remembered how she looked into his eyes and him saying that he loved her. It caught her completely off guard. “Now would be a good time to say something,” he had said, scratching the back of his head. All hope she had of not falling in love with him fluttered away when he looked back at her with all that hope and promise in his eyes, but she didn’t know what to say. She just smiled and kissed him, not trusting herself to speak. Looking back on that memory was like looking at an old scar that healed a long time ago.

Delilah remembered sitting on a dew-covered bench with him in the middle of an empty field, sharing secret kisses and laughing as their hearts danced across the star-ingrained sky. “The stars in the sky don’t compare to the ones in your eyes,” he had said, smiling at her.

“Something about this night,” she said, “something about this night makes everything different.”

“How so?” he asked. He coughed and turned away from her to gather himself up again. She had given him a puzzled look, not understanding what was wrong, but he just shrugged it off.

“I just mean that I don’t think I’ll love anyone more than I love you.” And she meant it. Every word she spoke was the truth, but he didn’t speak at first. Delilah thought she had said something wrong.

But he looked into her eyes and said, “I have loved you since the day I set eyes on you, and I will love you until I die.” She had been speechless. Delilah laughed at the thought of her face. He glanced at the look on her face and knew that she had felt the same. He took her into his arms and kissed her. This kiss had not been like the others; this kiss was passionate and gentle and fiery all at the same time. She pulled away, not wanting to move too fast, and he seemed to understand this. Delilah rested her head on his shoulder and sighed as a cool, brisk breeze blew in their faces.

“Are you cold?” he asked. Delilah shook her head and let the moment stay perfect, because she had known that perfect couldn’t last forever.

Delilah got up from her old bench, walked down her pathway, into her house, and sighed as she made her tea. She grabbed her photo album that sat under the coffee table and flipped through the pages. They were all of him. Some of them laughing and feeding each other french fries dipped in ketchup or throwing popcorn in each other’s mouths. Even of them smiling in Chicago, New York, and Toronto. She flipped to the last page in the book. It was the picture of them sitting on the cold bench. She was shivering and he was trying to keep her warm while taking the picture, but the angle was still lopsided. He had only gotten half of his face and missed the top of her head, but they were both smiling bright with happiness. Delilah had refused to believe that anything could ruin this perfect moment. Because that’s what she thought it was — perfect.

Closing the book, Delilah placed the photo album back on the table and stood up to put her mug back in the sink. When she looked up, she looked out her window and gazed at her large backyard. Delilah remembered the day after the starry night when he told her.

“Hey what’s going on? I came straight over when you called me. Is everything alright?” Delilah had asked. He was hesitant at first. “Hey, it’s me. You can tell me anything.” He still wouldn’t say anything, so she grabbed his face to look at her in the eyes. “There is nothing you can say that will drive me away from you. I love–”

“I’m dying Delilah,” he whispered, cutting her off.

“What?” she asked, shocked.

“I’m dying. I had cancer before we met, and it came back. There’s nothing they can do.”

“No. This– this can’t be real. This must be a dream or something. You can’t be– no. Stop lying to me. This isn’t funny,” she had said. But when she looked into his eyes and saw that he wasn’t making it up, she couldn’t take it. She tried to run from it, but when someone she loves tells her that they are going to die, she knew that there was no escaping the truth. She couldn’t escape the fighting, the screaming, and the crying; it all happened, and it all happened so fast.

When he died, Delilah didn’t know how she was going to go on. At first she couldn’t breathe; it was like trying to take a breath submerged in ice-cold water. People tried to help her, but all of the flowers and “I’m sorry for your loss” meant nothing to her. All she wanted was him, and that was the only thing on Earth that she couldn’t have.

Thirteen years had passed, and she had grown up; got married and had a family. She tried to make up for the fact that she lost him with a white-picket-fenced house and a yard that stretched for miles, but nothing could mask the pain she felt every day. She remembered finding an old bench while walking around her neighborhood sixty-four years after it happened. Delilah had seen the crummy old thing on the side of the road and thought that someone was probably going to give it away. So she called her son to help her bring it to her house and placed it in her backyard to remember him. She always wondered how she could bare the sight of the bench after what had happened, but she was strong, and she wanted to remember that time when she thought they could reach for the stars and that nothing could stop them.

After everything that they had been through, Delilah always wondered one thing: If their love was as strong as they had said, how come it didn’t last? How come it faded like most loves do? They always thought their love would surpass all the stars in the galaxy. But it didn’t.