All I ever wanted at my age was peace — the kind where you can sit in the sun, hear birds sing, and not have to worry. After years of rushing through life, I finally slowed down. But someone decided I didn’t deserve that peace.
His name was Arnold — my neighbor.
After raising kids, getting divorced, and settling into a quiet life, I thought I’d earned calm. But Arnold complained about everything: my fence, my flowers, even the smell of my cooking. One day, he lost it over the birds at my feeder and destroyed it. I didn’t back down — I bought three more feeders and even put up posters banning him from my yard.
I never understood his hatred. When he moved in, I’d even baked him a cherry pie. He slammed the door in my face. Since then, he seemed determined to make me miserable.
Then one day, I found his front door wide open. Concerned, I stepped inside and discovered something shocking — old photos of me with someone I hadn’t thought about in decades. My first love. Arnie. And just like that, I realized the truth: Arnold was Arnie.
He caught me in his house, and we finally confronted each other. He accused me of forgetting him, and I was furious — he had vanished without a word. But the truth unraveled: after a tragic accident took his parents, he’d been forced to leave the country. He wrote to me, but I never got the letters — we had moved shortly after he left.
He moved next door because he recognized me, but when I didn’t recognize him, it broke something in him. Instead of telling me, he turned cold.
In the end, we both realized the past couldn’t be undone. But maybe — just maybe — we still had a future.
He invited me to dinner. I said yes.
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