Rhenford Elementary sat on the corner of two quiet streets, a square brick building the color of faded clay. The windows rattled when trucks passed. The playground behind it was more gravel than grass, and the swings squeaked with every push. But for Dion, the school wasn't the worst place to be—it was simply a place between silences.
He spent most days unnoticed, drifting through lessons like a ghost. Teachers liked him well enough; he never caused trouble. His classmates saw him as the quiet boy who always had a notebook open, even during lunch. When others ran around playing football, Dion sat by the window, pencil in hand, staring outside as if waiting for the sky to answer something only he had asked.
That was how Lena Rivers first saw him.
Lena sat two rows behind him—sharp-eyed, restless, always reading books thicker than her wrists. She wasn't loud, but she had presence. When she raised her hand, teachers listened. When she walked down the hall, people moved aside without knowing why. There was something steady about her, a kind of confidence that didn't need to prove itself.
For weeks, she'd noticed Dion writing in that same small notebook. Sometimes he wrote quickly, as if afraid the words might escape. Other times he just stared at the page, unmoving, as though he could hear something the rest of them couldn't.
It wasn't until the end of October that she decided to talk to him.
It was raining, the kind of cold drizzle that turned the windows gray. Their class had been dismissed early, but most of the kids stayed behind, waiting for the weather to clear. Lena found Dion sitting alone by the window, notebook open, eyes fixed on the glass where raindrops traced slow, trembling paths.
"What are you always writing?" she asked, pulling a chair beside him.
Dion startled a little. He hadn't heard her approach. "Just stories," he said, closing the notebook halfway.
"Stories about what?"
He hesitated. "Anything. People. Places. Sometimes things that don't exist."
Lena tilted her head. "So you make things up?"
He frowned slightly. "Not really. I think they already exist somewhere. I just… find them."
She smiled. "You sound like a collector."
He looked at her then—really looked. Her eyes were green-gray, the color of the river on cloudy days. "Maybe," he said. "A collector of stories."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The sound of rain filled the room, steady and soft.
Then Lena leaned forward. "Can I read one?"
His throat tightened. No one had ever asked that before. Not his friends, not his teachers, not even his mother. The notebook was his private world—half-formed sentences, uneven handwriting, crossed-out lines. The idea of someone else seeing it felt like letting a stranger read his thoughts.
"I don't know," he murmured. "They're not… good."
"Let me decide that."
She said it gently, not teasing, just curious. There was something disarming about the way she spoke, as if she wasn't asking to judge him, only to understand.
After a long pause, Dion opened to a folded page near the middle. It was his first finished story—a short piece he had written the week before. He handed it to her without meeting her eyes.
She took it carefully, like it was something fragile.
The story was called The Street That Forgot Its Name. It was about an old road at the edge of town where the signs had faded, and the people who lived there slowly began to forget who they were. One boy tried to remember everything—names, faces, dreams—but the more he remembered, the lonelier he became.
Lena read quietly, her eyes moving quickly but not carelessly. The rain outside softened, falling into a hush. Dion watched her expression for any flicker of reaction—disapproval, amusement, anything—but her face was unreadable.
When she finished, she looked up. "You wrote this?"
He nodded.
"How old are you again?"
"Ten."
She smiled faintly. "You write like someone older."
He frowned, unsure whether that was good or bad. "Older?"
"Like someone who's afraid the world might forget him," she said simply.
Her words hit him like a small, quiet truth. Not sharp, but deep.
He tried to laugh it off, but the sound didn't come. "I don't think I'm afraid."
"Yes, you are," she said. "You write about remembering things. About keeping them alive. That's what people do when they're scared to disappear."
Dion looked down at his notebook. The rain started again, harder this time. "Maybe I just don't like losing things."
Lena leaned her chin on her hand, watching him. "That's the same thing."
They sat in silence for a while, the kind that didn't need filling. Around them, the classroom emptied one by one as students left for home. The light outside turned pale and silvery, reflecting in the wet window glass.
Lena flipped the last page of his story again. "You should write more," she said. "You're good at it."
He blushed slightly. "You think so?"
She shrugged. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't."
Her honesty was sharp but kind, and it made something warm flicker in his chest.
When she stood to leave, she glanced back at him. "You should title your next story before you start it."
"Why?"
"Because names give things a reason to exist."
And then she was gone—just like that, walking out into the rain with her backpack slung over one shoulder. Dion sat there for a long time after, staring at the spot where she had been.
He felt the strange pulse of something new—something close to hope, or maybe courage. He didn't know what to call it yet.
---
That night, Dion couldn't sleep. The rain had followed him home, tapping softly against his window. His father was already asleep in the next room; his mother's quiet hum drifted from the kitchen where she was folding laundry.
Dion sat at his desk, notebook open. He turned to a blank page and wrote across the top in small, uneven letters: For L.R.
He didn't know why. Maybe because she had read his story when no one else had. Maybe because she had seen something in his words that even he hadn't noticed.
Below the dedication, he began to write—not about streets or forgotten names this time, but about a girl who always sat by the window, reading as the rain fell, looking out at the world as if it were a book she hadn't finished yet.
The story came easily, like breathing.
He wrote until his hand ached and his pencil dulled. When he finally stopped, the moon had shifted higher, spilling pale light over his desk. He reread what he had written and felt, for the first time, a quiet satisfaction—not pride exactly, but peace.
He didn't think about showing it to anyone. Not yet. Some things, he realized, needed to stay secret a little longer, until they were ready to stand on their own.
---
Two days later, Lena found a folded sheet of paper tucked inside her desk when class began. There was no name, only careful handwriting and the title: The Girl by the Window.
She unfolded it slowly. The story was short—just a few pages—but she read it twice before the bell rang. By the end, she was smiling.
When Dion passed by her desk that afternoon, she didn't say anything. She just looked at him, a knowing look that said I read it.
He looked away quickly, but she caught the faintest trace of a smile before he did.
---
That evening, Lena sat by her own window at home, the same way the girl in the story did. The light from the streetlamp outside shimmered across the glass, turning everything soft and golden. She read the story again, tracing one line with her finger:
"Some people wait for stories to find them. Others write them so they won't be forgotten."
She closed her eyes and whispered, "You really do write like someone who's afraid the world will forget him."
And though she couldn't see him, miles away in his small room, Dion was sitting by his own window, doing the same thing—writing another story, quietly, as if the act itself was keeping something alive.
Outside, the rain began again, steady and familiar.
In two different houses, under the same soft storm, two children sat by their windows—one reading, one writing—both holding on to something they didn't yet have words for.