The summer night hummed with a hundred tiny sounds, the shuffle of feet on the boardwalk, the rustle of dresses in the breeze, the chatter of neighbors catching up under the strings of lights.
I had been at the Lantern Festival every year since I was old enough to toddle down Main Street. My mom used to say it wasn’t summer until paper lanterns floated above the harbor like fireflies.
Now, I was the one running the booth where people picked up their lanterns. The scent of fried dough drifted over from Mrs. Giordano’s food stand, mixing with the sharp tang of the salt air. Behind me, a row of red paper lanterns swayed gently in the evening breeze, waiting to be claimed.
I was halfway through handing one to Mr. Patel when I heard his voice.
“Do you still give them away, or is there a secret lantern tax now?”
The joke was pure Adam Quinn. Same crooked smile in his tone, same mix of teasing and familiarity that hadn’t changed since high school.
But the last time we’d spoken, it hadn’t ended with jokes. It had ended on the pier, both of us staring at the planks between our feet because we couldn’t bear to look each other in the eye.
I turned. And there he was, hair a little longer, eyes that still had that half-sunlit, half-shadowed look. He held out a couple of tickets, but his gaze lingered on me like we were both remembering the last words we’d said.
“Still free,” I managed, my voice steadier than I felt. “But tips are accepted if they come in the form of funnel cake.”
That earned me the smile, just a small one, but it reached his eyes. I handed him a lantern, the paper cool and smooth under my fingers.
He didn’t take it right away. “Do you still make a wish?”
I swallowed. “You know I do.”
We used to. Every year, we’d walk to the edge of the harbor, light the candle inside, and send our lanterns drifting into the night. Always after writing a wish on the inside with my favorite fountain pen. His wishes were a secret, but mine had always been the same.
Last year, mine had been him.
A few hours later, he came back and we walked together down to the pier without talking about it. The boards creaked under our steps, and the festival noise dimmed behind us. Down here, it was just the water lapping against the pilings and the far-off call of a gull that must’ve lost track of time.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” he said finally, holding his lantern between us like it might explain everything.
“I wasn’t sure you would,” I admitted.
He ran a thumb along the paper seam. “I almost didn’t come. But…” He hesitated, and I could feel the weight of the words building. “I didn’t want another year to go by without—” He broke off with a laugh. “Without fried dough, apparently.”
We both smiled, but something in his tone told me there was more he wasn’t saying.
We lit our candles and stood for a moment in the glow, watching it paint our faces in soft gold.
“Do you still write them down?” he asked.
I pulled the pen from my bag, the same one as always, and handed it over. He bent over his lantern, shielding it from the wind, and wrote something quick before passing it back.
I wrote mine slowly, the paper bending just slightly under the tip.
When we set them free our hands brushed. Once. Then again, not by accident.
The lanterns drifted away side by side, their light blurring into shimmering gold trails on the dark water.
“What did you wish for?” I asked, because I always did, knowing he’d never tell.
This time, he looked at me for a long moment before answering. “For a second chance.”
My breath caught.
“Do I get a say in granting that?” I asked lightly, though my heart was pounding.
He smiled, not the teasing one this time, but the one I’d missed for an entire year. “I’m hoping you do.”
The night breeze lifted my hair, carrying the scent of saltwater and funnel cake, and above us the paper lanterns glowed against the dark. I didn’t know if wishes came true, but I knew mine was still there, standing right beside me.