My world is still you,
It will never change.
___________
The sky beyond the library window looked pale—like it had run out of color.
Time moved slowly, as if it knew something was being awaited between the folds of books and the irregular thump of a restless heart.
Aerish sat in silence.
Her breath was calm,but her heart was not.
Across the long table cluttered with old books and the scent of damp wood, Kael Renford opened the sixteenth page of the book he had borrowed yesterday.
His steady fingers touched the worn paper—and there it was, hidden: a piece of poetry that Aerish had quietly slipped in the night before.
A silent fragment she wrote with a pen she had just acquired,its first ink made of feelings she had never named. A line born from tremors never spoken aloud.
Kael read it.
He didn't seem surprised.
Nor did he smile.
But he read it.
And Aerish's eyes watched him, nearly unblinking.
Her heartbeat no longer knew which rhythm was right. Deep within her, a small voice trembled, "Dear God... will he respond today?"
Then something happened.
Kael moved his pen. That hand… was writing something beside the poem Aerish had slipped in. A reply? A verse? Or… just a meaningless scribble?
Aerish wanted to know. But she didn't dare move. Didn't dare ask.
She only watched, her chest tight with hope long kept hidden.
Kael remained seated at the edge of the old wooden chair, his arm moving gently as he turned the final pages of the book. His fingers paused at a sheet of poetry never written in anyone's name.
Those lines…
They seemed to know her heart better than she did.
Aerish watched from between the shelves. Her breath caught as Kael gazed at that page too long, as if trying to remember, to understand—or worse—recognize.
"Does he know…?"
Aerish's chest trembled, but she didn't move. She didn't even dare swallow, afraid that even the tiniest sound would disturb the fragile silence between them.
Kael touched the page once more.
Then, without warning, he took out a pen from his pocket—and began to write.
The ink touched the blank side of the page with a calmness that tormented her. Aerish wanted to know… but feared the answer.
She didn't know what words Kael was leaving behind.
Not for her. Or perhaps—for her?
The rain beyond the window spread like watercolor stains on the marble floor of the library.
Time seemed frozen, and only the beat of Aerish's heart accompanied the strokes of Kael's pen.
She saw Kael's body lean slightly forward, his hair falling across his brow. So calm, so unreachable.
And in the stillness, Aerish knew:
She would write about this tonight. About held breaths, about untouched distances, about a love that must remain secret.
The pen stopped.
Kael closed his eyes briefly, then shut the book.
And as he stood, Aerish stepped back half a pace behind the shelf.
After Kael's footsteps had completely faded from the corridor, Aerish slowly walked toward the table where he had been sitting.
The rain still fell gently beyond the window, and the twilight light came through the glass in a pale golden hue.
She opened the book.
The page Kael had touched was now open before her. Beside the poem she had secretly written the night before, there was now another handwriting.
Kael's handwriting.
The black ink was not yet fully dry.
Aerish read it slowly, her heart pounding as if it wanted to leap from her chest.
"There is something in your verse I cannot explain.
Perhaps not a memory.
But a feeling that has waited long to be found again.
If this verse is a part of you,
then I… once knew the same silence."
Aerish didn't know whether to cry or smile.
She simply closed her eyes and let those words settle within her, like the dim light of a candle—not bright, but warm enough to hold the night.
Her hand touched the edge of the page, as if to make sure it was real. That Kael had truly written it. That maybe… somewhere in his memory, something hadn't fully disappeared.
And that was enough.
For today, it was enough.
Her breath held in the shadows, as if her presence could erase all the unfinished poems.
After reading a few of Kael's responding lines—
Aerish lowered her gaze again, her hand touching the spine of a book titled Whispers Between the Pages. Her fingers stayed there, not truly intending to pull it out, only wanting to feel the coolness of its cover—like touching a memory that was never fully written.
Liora approached.
She stood beside her.
—"You know," Liora said quietly, her voice nearly drowned by the creaking of wood eaten by time, "sometimes I wonder, do you really read these books… or are you looking for something that's not in them?"
Aerish gave a faint smile, but didn't answer. She only stared ahead, at rows of shelves filled with letters that seemed to echo fragments of the past.
—"Kael…" Liora finally whispered. "You still don't want to tell him what you feel?"
Aerish's breath caught instantly. There was a silent pause between that name and her heartbeat, which suddenly slowed.
His name. Spoken with a voice as calm as morning dew, yet able to unbalance her entire soul.
—"It's not hope," Aerish replied at last. "I just… keep the part of me he once saved. And maybe… I want him to find it again."
Liora closed her eyes for a moment.
—"What if he's truly forgotten you?"
—"Then I'll keep writing," Aerish murmured. "So that one day, if his heart feels something he can't explain… maybe my words will lead him back."
Suddenly, the sound of the old clock at the end of the hall chimed once. Its tone was deep and hoarse, as if reminding time that not all wounds can be healed by it.
Footsteps began to echo in the corridor beyond.
The world outside ticked slowly, as if reluctant to demand anyone to continue.
The sky sent down rain with hesitant steps—not heavy, but enough to dissolve feelings left unfinished.
The ticking of the old clock's hands was faint in the library's corner, marking minutes that no one cared about.
In that hush, Aerish closed her journal.
She placed it gently on the slightly damp wooden table, as if entrusting a part of her soul there—unspoken, never sent, and perhaps never to be read.
Liora continued watching in silence. She said nothing more, only following her friend's movements with a quiet full of questions.
There was something in Aerish's eyes that afternoon that Liora had yet to understand. A distance—or perhaps a depth—that hadn't yet found its moment to be touched.
They both knew the world outside didn't wait for anyone to heal.
Yet for a moment, time seemed to grant them space.
Aerish looked out the window. Raindrops danced aimlessly, falling on the cold glass that never asked why.
"If only the rain hadn't brought you… maybe I wouldn't be here,"
The murmur was faint, nearly inaudible, just floating in the air before disappearing with the evening breeze.
A single verse that escaped the depths of her heart by accident.
And like a sentence left unfinished, the chapter quietly closed itself—not with a sound, not with a full stop, only a silence hanging at the edge of a meaning never spoken.
It didn't close with an end, but with a pause too long to be called waiting. As if the final page refused to truly end, letting empty space drift between one possibility and another.
A chapter never truly finished, only fading slowly behind the shadows of days still moving. Not because it wasn't important, but because it was too fragile to touch. Too honest to be illuminated.
And within the folds of that silence, a faint note was tucked away—a blurred writing only legible to a soul that had once known such solitude. A message never meant for anyone, yet still hoping to be found.
But until now, no eyes were keen enough, no hands gentle enough, no heart broken enough to notice it.
That note still hides, silent behind the dust of time, waiting for someone who knows how to read a wound never written.
And until that happens, the chapter will remain closed—like the final whisper of a dream too afraid to wake fully.
_____
Will Aerish's love finally find a new beginning?
Or will she remain silent beneath the pouring rain?...
Still here...
So she won't forget the girl who loved in silence.
♥️ Aerish