In a small neighborhood candy store, a 14-year-old girl spent her afternoons behind the counter, stocking shelves, arranging jars of sweets, and ringing up customers for her parents. One summer afternoon, a father and his 12-year-old son came in to buy a newspaper.

The boy took one look at the girl—and in that moment, his world quietly shifted. He didn’t just notice her; he fell in love.

From that day forward, he made a silent promise to himself. Every single day, without fail, he would come into the candy store. And every day, for more than two years, he bought the same thing: a Hershey bar.

On the back of each bar was a small, almost unnoticeable sticker with the name and address of the store. He kept every one.

He was so shy that when he stood near her, words felt heavy and clumsy in his mouth. So he said very little, but his heart kept speaking in a language she never heard—at least, not yet.

Then, one day, she was gone.

He came in for weeks, hoping to see her, buying Hershey bars as always. But the space behind the counter stayed empty of her smile. Eventually, he understood—she wasn’t coming back. The boy’s heart ached, but life moved on.

Years passed. He left for college out of state, carrying the memory of that candy store girl quietly in his heart.

One ordinary afternoon, while walking across campus, he noticed a young woman sitting on a bench, crying. Something in him wouldn’t let him just pass by. He stopped, asked if she was okay.

“No,” she said softly, tears spilling down her cheeks. She didn’t give details, but he gathered she had just learned the boy she thought loved her… didn’t.

He set his books down, sat beside her, and tried to comfort her. She wasn’t ready to talk, but he stayed for a while, offering quiet words and presence. Then, as the clock pulled him toward class, he stood to leave—forgetting his history notebook on the bench.

She noticed it after he was gone. Wanting to return it, she opened the loose-leaf notebook, looking for a name, a schedule—something. But there were no lecture notes, no assignments, no lists.

Instead, there were 763 Hershey bar wrappers.

On the back of each one, in handwriting she slowly recognized, was a love letter. Each began with a girl’s name. Her name.

She turned one over and saw it: the same tiny sticker with the name and address of her parents’ candy store. The place where she had worked all those years ago, when she was 14 and a shy boy used to come in every single day.

The tears came harder now, but they were different—soft, trembling tears of joy and disbelief.

That boy had been loving her in silence for years. And here he was, sitting beside her on a college bench, still carrying the proof.

This story is told today by another 14-year-old girl behind the counter of the same candy store—only now, she’s telling it to customers as the tale of how her grandparents first met, nearly 60 years ago.