“You threw away your education for this so-called love! We sent you to study, not to get married! As if we needed some farm girl in the family,” his father fumed. Their sons reckless passion had to be stoppedby force if necessary. At his fathers insistence, Victor enlisted.
Victoria tidied the house with methodical precision. Fresh wallpaper, new curtainsnow she tackled the clutter in the loft. Order soothed her. But in the farthest corner, she found a box of Victors letters. How long had it been since she last opened it? Forgotten, abandoned. She unfolded one, then another, then another
Vicky and Victor had met at Imperial College London. He was a city boy; she came from a rural village.
Shed caught his eye instantlyher long chestnut hair, those striking green eyes, the way she carried herself with quiet grace.
Victor was relentless. For shy, reserved Vicky, his whirlwind affection was overwhelming. Flowers at her dorm door. Midnight visits just to whisper goodnighther room was on the ground floor. Parties, stolen kisses, lazy walkstheir first year flew by. They were inseparable.
But Victor neglected his studies. Hed never been academically driven, and nowthis love consumed him. He was expelled. It hardly mattered to him.
“Ill find work, re-enrol part-time later. But first, Ill marry you, my joy,” he told Victoria.
He got a job at a factory and broke the news to his parents. Theyd met Vicky a handful of times. He knew they wouldnt be thrilled. His mother and father had always envisioned him marrying their friends daughter, Eleanor. But neither he nor Eleanor had any interest in fulfilling that dream.
Victor believed he could make them understand. Hed explain how much he loved Vicky, how life without her was unthinkable.
They didnt understand.
The backlash was brutal.
His fathers voice was sharp. “You threw away your education for this so-called love! We sent you to study, not to get married! As if we needed some farm girl in the family.”
Separation was their solution. At his fathers urging, Victor enlisted.
Vicky ached without him. His letters were her only solaceso tender, so full of longing.
Then, abruptly, they stopped. A month passed, then two, then six. Not a word. She was frantic.
“It happens. Distance kills passion. Maybe it wasnt love, just infatuation,” her classmate Simon reassured her.
Simon was their mutual friend. What Vicky didnt know was that Simon had written to Victorconfessing his own love for her, claiming they were together. Hed begged Victor not to write again.
Vicky resigned herself. She threw herself into studies, into friendships. Simon was always there, his devotion unwavering.
“At least let Simon be happy,” she thought, and when he proposed, she said yes.
She meant to burn Victors letters, but couldnt bring herself to. Instead, she tucked them away in a box, hidden in the loft.
Life moved on.
Victors parents wasted no time informing himVicky had married Simon.
Years turned to decades.
Vicky and Victor lived in the same city, their lives parallel, never intersecting.
Rumours reached herVictor had married. Not Eleanor. Someone else. A son was born.
Her own life was steady, unremarkable. Two daughters. Work. Routine. No time for longing.
She and Simon trudged through the years, joyless, forgetting life could be anything more.
Thirty-five years passed.
Her marriage crumbled. No matter how hard she tried, love never came. Simon found solace elsewhere. Their daughters, grown, had families of their own. Nothing tied them together anymore.
After the divorce, Simon confessedhow hed orchestrated their separation.
Victors marriage had failed too. He was alone.
Vicky finished the last letter. Tears streamed down her face even as she smiled. Suddenly, she needed to knowwhere was he now? How had his life unfolded? Just to see him, to talk
She wrote to his old address. Maybe he still lived there. Maybe family could pass it on. Vicky had always been decisive. She penned the letter in one breath, inviting him to a café near her home. No hesitationshe dropped it in the nearest postbox.
The next morning, she cursed herself. “Why am I so foolish?”
Victor checked his postbox out of habit. A letter? So rare these days. His pulse spiked when he saw the name. He read it, and time collapsed.
At the appointed hour, he stepped into the café, heart racing. The place was emptyexcept for one woman at a corner table.
“Vicky.” His voice was barely a whisper.
She turned. Met his gaze.
Those eyeshed remembered them every day for thirty-five years.
Then they talked. And laughed. And wept.
They left hand in hand, determined never to part again.
P.S.
Nearly five years have passed since that day. Victoria and Victor are inseparable, each morning a gift.
True love doesnt vanish. Of this, they are now certain.
