Dianne and Jimma met before they even understood what love meant. In the village of Nandor, where everyone knew everyone, their names had been linked since childhood like the sun and the moon.
Dianne was bold, endlessly curious, and often found climbing trees in her dress or chasing after wind with a ribbon in hand. Jimma was quieter, always watching her with a soft smile, offering calm where her storms brewed. They had their first real conversation when Dianne, aged seven, scraped her knee on a jagged rock under the sycamore tree.
Jimma, carrying a satchel of berries, rushed to her side. Without hesitation, he tore a strip from his shirt and tied it around her wound. She looked at him with big, teary eyes and asked, "Will you always help me when I fall?"
He nodded. "Always."
From that day, the world outside their bond faded. Childhood turned into adolescence, and while others experimented with different crushes, Dianne and Jimma's bond never wavered. Every summer evening, they met under the ancient willow near the river , a tree said to grant wishes only to the purest of hearts. There, they dreamed.
"I want a wedding with no shoes and music from flutes," Dianne would say, sketching ideas in her notebook. "And I want a garden full of daisies and two children who laugh like the wind."
Jimma would always nod, adding, "And I'll build us a house with windows big enough to see the stars from every room."
Their dreams didn't just belong to them. The town quietly rooted for their story, seeing in them the kind of love that reminded people of why it's worth believing.
What no one expected, however, was how short their story , at least the first part would be.