Chapter 8 – Selene's Second Letter
Selene sat at her desk long after midnight, the glow of the small lamp cutting a circle of light into the dark. Outside, the city was hushed — only the occasional car passed, headlights brushing against her curtains before vanishing again.
The envelope she'd received from him lay open on the desk, her fingers brushing its edges like a talisman. She had read his words so many times that she nearly knew them by heart.
I don't think you're invisible… Even now, I see you.
The words had unnerved her at first. How could someone who had never met her claim to see her? And yet, the ink on the page was firm, deliberate, without apology. Whoever he was, he believed what he wrote. That belief had lingered in her chest for days, unsettling and strangely comforting.
But now it was her turn to reply.
The blank page in front of her felt heavier than the one she'd faced before. This was no longer the first step into darkness. This was a continuation, and that terrified her more.
Her pen hovered. She thought of Maren — her little sister, fourteen and full of restless questions. Maren believed Selene had answers, believed she was steady, reliable, someone to lean on. Selene had never told her about the late nights spent curled in bed, swallowing words she couldn't speak. She had never admitted that their parents' constant battles had carved something raw into her.
How could she? She was the strong one. The shield.
She pressed the pen down, ink pooling in the corner of the page before words finally began to spill.
Selene's Letter
(handwriting slightly steadier than before, though darker at the edges where she pressed too hard)
You said weakness is pretending we don't need anyone. I've pretended for a long time. I've worn strength like a costume, and some days I can't tell if I'm still inside it or if it's all that's left of me. Writing this feels dangerous, like I'm breaking my own rules.
But your reply… it mattered more than I expected. No one has stayed with me in the dark before, not like that. If you mean what you wrote, then maybe I want to believe you. Even for a moment. Belief doesn't come easily to me. But maybe I can try.
I don't know your name, or who you are, but if you're still listening… I'd like to write again.
She set the pen down, staring at what she had written. The lines looked too sharp, too raw, as if she had let the page strip her bare. She considered tearing it up, starting again — a safer version, a softer version.
But then her eyes caught on the letter he had sent her, the firmness of his script, the blunt honesty of his words. I'll answer honestly, he had promised.
So she folded her page, pressed the crease flat, and slid it into the envelope before she could lose her nerve.
Her hands trembled as she sealed it shut.
This time, she didn't hide it in the drawer. She set the letter out on the counter by her keys, where she would see it in the morning, where she could not escape it.
The drawer still held her photograph of Maren, the secret she could never voice. Now, alongside it, lay another secret — one that felt less like a burden and more like the beginning of something fragile, something she didn't yet have a name for.
Selene sat back in her chair, staring into the circle of lamplight until her eyes blurred. She was still afraid. But the fear no longer drowned her.
She had written. Again.
And tomorrow, the words would leave her hands, crossing into the unknown, toward a stranger who, impossibly, had told her she was seen.