A love that only lives between pages never opened with voice
---
The sky was no longer blue.
Twilight had not yet arrived, but the light of day had dimmed—like a hope held too tightly for too long. The clouds above Edinburgh hung like ink stains on a blank page—unsure whether to fall or stay.
The halls of Elmsworth Academy were quiet that afternoon. Damp.
Literature students lingered in silence—some still reading verses framed along the corridor walls, others sitting cross-legged near the windows, scribbling down stray lines of poetry. The faint scent of rain lingered in the air, mixing with the smell of aged paper and black coffee. The windows, misted by the cold, reflected passing shadows.
One of them belonged to Aerish Elowen.
Her pale cream coat swayed gently with every step. Her chestnut hair spilled loosely, tied with a frayed ribbon the color of rain. Her boots tapped lightly against damp stone. Her eyes, soft brown and solemn, carried thousands of unsaid verses.
She had just finished a group assignment with Liora Valeen—smiled a little, jotted a few notes. But even in her laughter, the shadow lingered.
Kael.
Not a love unreachable, but a love she refused to reach—afraid that touching it might make it vanish.
---
Before heading to the library, Aerish stopped by the little house her mother once owned, nestled quietly at the edge of a cobbled street.
Its walls bore fading paintings. The scent of cinnamon, old ink, and unsent letters filled the rooms. On the table in the living room, her mother's love letters—never mailed—sat untouched.
Aerish entered her room. The light filtered softly through the curtains.
She opened a small wooden box on her vanity. Inside: a bronze-engraved fountain pen, a ribbon once used to bind her poems, and fragments of unfinished letters. She tied her hair again with care, glancing at her reflection in the oval mirror.
"We'll write again today," she whispered. "But not to be heard. Only to be kept."
---
The rain began to fall—gently, like a soft memory returning.
Aerish walked the streets of Edinburgh, her steps quiet. The stone path shimmered faintly from the drizzle. Across the road, a flower vendor nodded at her in silent greeting. She offered a faint smile in return. It didn't quite reach her eyes.
At the corner, the bell tower struck five. The echo rippled into the mist.
She reached her family's library—a stone building with arched windows and dark wood frames. The door creaked open, releasing the scent of wet wood, dust, and something ancient.
This was her sanctuary.
Here, feelings were allowed to weep.
She passed the shelves slowly, fingertips grazing spines like the edges of memory. She stopped at the poetry section—her fingers resting on a Spanish poetry book bound in black and gold.
Page thirty-seven. Always.
She didn't know why. Perhaps it had once held a coincidence—now it held meaning.
She sat at the window seat. Outside, the rain whispered on the glass. Not loud. Not sad. Just… existing. Her pen, nearly dry, sat in her fingers like an old companion.
Before writing, she looked out.
And there… was Kael.
---
He walked past the courtyard.
His umbrella was half-open. Rain dripped from his fringe. His dark coat absorbed the grey light of evening. His shoulders slouched slightly. Something invisible hung from him.
Aerish stilled.
She opened her notebook and pulled out a folded slip of paper—the poem she had written last night, under candlelight, while the rain hummed through her window.
Poem by Aerish (page 37)
> "My feelings tangled in silence,
Bound to nothing, yet kept within.
The echoes I sent
Could never reach your space."
She placed the note between the pages. If fate had hands, maybe today it would turn this one.
The door opened behind her.
Footsteps. Familiar.
Kael.
Aerish didn't turn. But in the reflection of the window, she watched him. He paused in front of the poetry shelf. His hand reached. The exact book. He opened it.
Poem read by Kael
> "The roar of the universe's drizzle,
A whisper of feeling I cannot voice."
He read in silence.
Then softly: "Who are you really…?"
Aerish's chest tightened.
He closed the book. For a second, he looked toward the window. Their eyes didn't meet directly. Only in reflection. But it was enough to silence the world.
Kael lowered his head in a quiet nod and turned.
Aerish didn't breathe.
As he walked to the borrowing desk, the silence in her heart grew heavy.
Before leaving, he glanced once more.
And this time—Sera Aurelienne appeared at the hallway across.
The girl waved.
Kael returned it, briefly. Aerish saw it all.
Sera's laugh floated in, bright as a sliver of sunlight slipping through a rain-damp curtain.
Aerish looked away.
She opened to a new page in her journal. Pressed down the last of her pen's ink.
> "Even if I can't say your name,
Let these words find their way to you—
Mapless. Voiceless. Real."
---
The rain deepened outside.
Inside the library, the light dimmed into gold. Shadows melted over the floors. Aerish remained still. The poem unfinished. The name still unwritten.
And outside… someone walked away, unaware he carried pieces of her.
Still—she wrote.
For someone who didn't know her name.
For a love that lived between lines.
And silence.
---
She didn't go home.
Not yet.
In the far corner of the library, she lit the reading lamp and pulled out an old anthology—Letters Without Endings. She flipped to the last blank page and scribbled:
> "Maybe one day you'll find me—
not in the words,
but in the spaces between them."
She didn't sign it.
She never did.
The ink dried slowly. A breath held in time.
---
Hours passed.
She moved through the aisles, trailing fingertips over books she knew by heart. She returned one borrowed volume to its shelf, and in doing so, found a note between the pages—one she herself had left weeks ago.
> "You once saved me in the rain.
Maybe that's why I keep drowning."
She smiled faintly.
And tucked it back.
---
Outside, the rain soaked the world without demand.
Somewhere, Kael walked through the mist, his hands in his pockets, his thoughts quiet. In one of those pockets, the poem still waited—folded, silent, aching to be read again.
_____
---
She didn't leave the library right away.
Not yet.
The room felt too much like a breath she hadn't finished.
The wooden shelves stood like old guards watching her silence.
And the rain kept singing—soft, persistent—like it, too, had something it longed to say.
Aerish rested her hand on the closed journal.
She could still feel the warmth of her fingers where the ink had dried.
Each word she had written carried pieces of her,
and now they existed… somewhere near him.
She leaned forward slightly, forehead brushing the edge of the windowpane.
Cool glass met her skin, and for a moment, she imagined her breath fogging up the world between them.
> "How many poems does it take before a name is remembered?"
Outside, the lamps had flickered on.
One by one, they lit the campus paths like glowing commas,
pausing the night rather than chasing it.
In the courtyard, two students rehearsed a line from Byron aloud.
Their voices drifted through the half-open window:
> "She walks in beauty, like the night..."
The line pierced her chest like a memory that never became real.
---
She moved at last—slowly—through the aisles.
Not toward the exit.
But deeper into the poetry section.
She passed volumes she'd memorized, pages she'd once cried over,
and stopped at a book she hadn't opened in years.
"Notes on the Invisible," by C.R. Linton.
She flipped to the first page.
A dedication in faded ink greeted her:
> To those who write in silence, may someone, someday, answer.
Aerish sat back down at another table, not far from her usual window.
The chair creaked softly beneath her.
And then… she wrote.
Not in her journal.
Not a poem to leave behind.
But a letter.
> *Dear You—
If you ever read this,
Know that I was always here.
Writing, watching, hoping not to be seen—
and yet aching to be found.
Yours in all the quiet ways,
A.*
She folded the page slowly.
Pressed it between two forgotten anthologies.
No name. No sign. Just breath in ink.
---
As she rose again, footsteps returned behind her.
But this time—not Kael's.
"Still here?"
It was Liora Valeen, carrying two coffee cups and a cardigan around her shoulder.
Aerish blinked in surprise.
She hadn't expected anyone to come looking.
Liora placed one of the cups beside her.
Steam rose, along with the familiar scent of bitter cinnamon blend—the one Aerish always chose but never finished.
"You're impossible to find when the sky turns grey," Liora smiled.
Aerish smiled back, faintly. "Maybe that's the point."
They sat in silence for a while.
No need to fill it with questions.
Liora never asked why Aerish always watched but never spoke.
She only stayed.
---
Outside, the rain slowed to a whisper.
Kael had gone.
So had the moment.
But in its place… something lingered.
A breath.
A line.
A question unanswered.
And somewhere in the pocket of his coat, folded without name or return address,
two poems waited.
They waited like unopened doors.
Like a voice just shy of volume.
Like a girl who once stood beneath a tree and gave a boy a pen—
and never got it back.
_____________
Somewhere in the city's stillness,
the words she wrote whispered to the wind—
and the one meant to hear them
hadn't yet remembered
the rain.
---