The campus was quieter now — emptied of the familiar chaos of students rushing between classes, the grassy quad scattered with remnants of summer picnics and leftover laughter. It was a place suspended between endings and beginnings.
Ella sat under their tree — the one near the old literature hall, where Kieran had once slipped a note into her textbook — and stared at the last page of their shared journal.
There was only one blank line left.
August had arrived.
Tomorrow, he would board a train to New York.
And she didn't know how to let him go.
Kieran approached quietly, hands in his pockets, a gentle weight in his expression. His shirt was wrinkled, hair tousled from wind, but his eyes found her with an intensity that made her heart feel like fragile paper, folded too many times.
He sat beside her without a word. Just the soft sigh of someone whose heart had been speaking too loudly all morning.
She handed him the journal. "One line left."
He hesitated, then took the pen from her fingers. He scribbled, slowly. Carefully. Like the whole weight of their story rested in that single sentence.
"I won't say goodbye. I'll say: write to me soon, my love."
He passed it back. "Now it's complete."
Ella looked down at the sentence, tears blurring the ink. "Kieran…"
"I've been trying to write the perfect goodbye letter," he said. "But there isn't one."
She leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. "Maybe because this isn't goodbye."
"It's not," he agreed, softly. "It's just… a pause."
They stayed that way for a long time — not speaking, letting the breeze say what words couldn't. Birds called in the trees. Somewhere nearby, a group of students laughed. The world, indifferent and beautiful, moved on.
And so would they.
Later, they walked to the train station together, hand in hand.
He had one small suitcase and the journal tucked under his arm. On the platform, he turned to her, framing her face in his palms, memorizing every line.
"I'll write you," he said. "Every day."
"I'll reply," she whispered, tears escaping. "Every word."
The train hissed, doors opened.
He kissed her — not with urgency, but with reverence. A punctuation mark that said: You mattered. You matter still.
And then he was gone.
Ella stood there long after the train disappeared, the wind tugging at her skirt, the journal hugged tight to her chest.
Back in her dorm, she opened it again, found the first page, and began reading.
Each line, each page, every scribble and signature — it was their story.
Their love letter to time.
And as she flipped to the final entry, she found something she hadn't seen before. A folded note tucked into the back cover, addressed in Kieran's slanted handwriting.
"Open on a day when you miss me more than usual."
She pressed it to her lips.
She didn't open it.
Not yet.
Because even in absence, he was still with her.
In ink. In breath.
In every word between.
To be continued…