Isla read the letter again.
Then again.
It wasn't just words - it was the way they made her feel like someone had seen the bone beneath her skin. Like someone had opened a window in a room she thought was sealed forever.
She folded the letter carefully and slipped it back between the pages of Letter to a Young Poet, her fingers lingering on the softness of the paper, the thrill still crawling up her spine.
She should leave.
She should walk out and pretend it didn't happen. That someone out there hadn't found her most vulnerable moment and answered it with poetry.
Instead she sat down in the same cracked leather chair, and pulled out her notebook - the one she never showed anyone. The one with coffee stains and bent corners and ink that bled like bruises.
She stared at the blank page for a long time.
And then she wrote.
Dear You,
I didn't expect an answer.
I wasn't even sure I wanted one. Maybe I was afraid that the person on the other end of this invisible thread would unravel me further.
But here you are.
And here I am - writing again, knowing someone's listening.
I want to ask who you are, what you look like, where you're from... but I won't. Not yet. Because right now, not knowing is beautiful. And terrifying. And honest.
I'll leave this letter here, in the same book, like a heartbeat tucked between pages.
Tell me something real.
Anything.
- Me.
When she returned the book to its place on the shelf, her fingers trembled. Her pulse thudded in her throat, like a secret begging to be spoken aloud.
And then she left, disappearing into the city like a sentence without an ending.
She checked the book every two days.
Nothing.
By the fourth day, she convinced herself it was a fluke. Maybe someone was playing a joke. Maybe Mrs. Greaves had started answering just to humor her. Maybe it was a sign to stop pouring herself into strangers.
But on the fifth day, the letter was there.
And it was long.
Dear Me,
Something real, you said.
Okay.
When I was ten, I wanted to be invisible. Not like a superhero - just... gone. I used to sit in the back of my parents' car and wonder what it would feel like to vanish. To not be seen, not be asked questions, not have to answer the expectations weighing down my chest like wet clothes.
I'm older now. But sometimes I still feel like that kid in the back seat, trying to disappear between the lines.
You asked for real. So here's real: I haven't written anything in three years. Not since I trusted someone with something sacred and they broke it without even knowing.
But here I am, writing again.
Because of you.
- You.
Isla read the letter under the covers of her bed that night, the city lights casting a soft glow through the blinds. Her eyes stung. From what? She wasn't sure. Maybe it was the truth. Or maybe it was that strange, dangerous feeling blooming in her ribs: connection.
She had touched something sacred in a stranger.
And he had touched something buried in her.
She didn't know his name. She didn't know what he looked like, or what he did, or why she trusted him more than most people with faces.
But she knew this.
She had felt more alive.
And that scared the hell out of her.