Lost Love

Once there was this talented young man, by the name of Luca. Luca was 17 years young. Ever since Luca was just a little boy, he always had an old soul. He thought much deeper than his peers about a lot of different things of tangible value. Luca loved playing ice hockey. He learned how to play at the age of 3. He was quite good at it. Quite good at it indeed.

One day in the year 2025, Luca and some friends ventured off to a pond nearby to skate on the ice. Earlier that afternoon, before him and his group of friends headed to the pond, Luca, surprisingly, was handed a note in AP English Class by a French girl named Paris. Paris had the biggest crush on Luca. Paris family had recently relocated to the States for her dad's work. When Luca was skating on the ice, Paris' special note fell out of his coat pocket and fell onto the ice. Once Luca made it home, he realized the note was gone. Luca was disappointed. He liked his classmate Paris, the new girl in his class.

With no time at all to return to the ice, due to a scheduled hockey game, Luca pushed concern about the note to the back burner of his mind. Luca never did learn that Paris had a crush on him. Paris just assumed that Luca was not interested, based on the absent of a response on Luca's behalf. Luca, thanks to an ADHD mind, got sidetracked and forgot to ask Paris what the note had said. The two wound up just acquaintances and classmates the reminder of their time in high school.

Fast forward five years later, when Luca is about to graduate from UConn on the Dean's List all four years. A university where Luca had received a full ride, thanks to a very generous hockey scholarship. He was planning to attend Quinnipiac University for Grad School. A few old friends of his wanted to celebrate their recent graduation victories by going down to that old pond. Except there would be no skating involved, because it was springtime then.

After some laughs and reminiscing about the old times, and their games at the ponds over the years, Luca sat on a rock to tie his shoe. Behind the rock, where Luca sat was this extremely large treasure chest covered in gravel. Yet one area was uncovered, and that was how Luca had spotted it.

Luca's old dog named Yeller had pawed at it, uncovering enough to have Luca notice something was hidden beneath the gravel. He opened it. Inside were lots of interesting things. Luca began to go through the different objects inside the chest.

As Luca began searching through the objects inside the chest, it dawned on him that this must be things that had been pulled out of the pond once it thawed every year. There were dozens of notes, Chapstick, gloves, keychains, coins, you name it, located inside that chest.

Much to Luca's surprise, he came across that note that dropped out of his pocket his senior year of high school. After reading the gently faded note, Luca learned at 22 years of age that Paris had a major crush on him that senior year in high school and took a chance to see if he felt the same that day in class.

Luca was beside himself. So many thoughts and emotions he experienced at that very moment. For starters, he felt bad he never made an effort to go back to that pond to look for the note. Nor did he confess to Paris, he had lost it and try to find out what message she wrote in it.

Then lastly, there was joy, since Luca had been carrying a secret crush on Paris since the moment he met her. The two were friends, for a while on social media, and ran into one another at hometown events, but eventually lost touch when he went away to college.

When Luca arrived home, he reached out to her on social media. Much to his surprise she had just broken off a long-distance relationship with her Navy Sailor boyfriend and was very single and so elated to hear from him. The two met up tjust a few days later for pizza and the rest is history.

Fast forward, six years later, the two are very happily married with two little twin boys, age 3. Luca, also a twin. Get this. Luca would take his twin boys down to that very same pond to teach them how to skate. Yes, after college, they bought property not far at all from that very pond, Luca's twin boys skated on that very same ice, and even turned to the lost and found treasure box, as well, on a handful of occasions.

When Luca's son Peter was 21, he got a job as an anchorman at the local news station. Peter did an article on that mysterious treasure chest that still to this day takes up residency behind the rock by the neighborhood pond.

Hundreds of people saw Peter's news episode about the pond's treasure chest and phoned or emailed into the station reporting that one of those missing notes spoken about on tv, belonged to them. Daughters were reunited with their mothers, fathers with their sons, daughters with their dads, and sons with their moms. New romantic relationships emerged from that news report. It was absolutely wonderful and beautiful.

One afternoon, the news station got this mysterious call. The call was from the daughter of an aging dying man named Donovan who was the man who started the treasure chest. The man was looking to connect with Luca and his son Peter, the first one to discover the chest and the one to share its fortune. They met on national tv. The owner of the pond, the dying man Eli winded up giving the rights to the land where the pond was located to them.

To this day Luca's grandkids skate on that very pond. Once a year, Luca's family hold a festival, where everyone who's lives had benefited or have been touched in some beautiful way by that pond can meet and celebrate together. The End.