Chapter: The Shelf That Remembered
The school library was quiet in the way old places often are — not from silence, but from memory. Dust danced in the slanting afternoon light, each mote like a fragment of a forgotten word. The air smelled of old pages and something fainter, like echoes.
A girl, no older than seventeen, drifted past the fiction aisle, fingers brushing spines without truly looking. It was the kind of day where the heart wandered before the feet did. She didn't know what she was looking for. Maybe she didn't need to.
Her hand paused on two worn books — one with a soft leather cover, the other stitched with thread, like someone had tried to fix it by hand. The titles were handwritten, ink faded from time.
On one, in scrawled, shaky penmanship:
For David
On the other:
For Amelia
She blinked.
It felt… wrong to open them. Like stepping into a room meant for someone else. But something tugged at her, soft and steady.
She opened Amelia's first.
The first page bore no title. Just a letter. A goodbye. A confession. A eulogy of love that outlived the people in it.
> For the boy who taught me to smile—
I wish I had the courage to tell you all of this while you were still breathing beside me. Maybe then I wouldn't be writing it now, years too late.
I read every page you left me. I underlined the pain, circled the hope, and folded the corners of the lines that broke me. You were never as invisible as you thought.
You were lightning behind the clouds—quiet but inevitable.
Sometimes, I hear your voice when I write. Not out loud. Just… the echo of who you were. Steady, unsure, brilliant in the ways you never admitted.
I built a life around your memory. Not out of grief. Out of gratitude.
If love is remembering someone the way they wanted to be seen, then I loved you even when I didn't know how to say it.
I'll be on that stage soon—our stage.
Saying the words we never spoke. And if this is my final scene, know that I left smiling.
You were worth it. Every line. Every page.
Still yours.
If you're reading this, I'm already gone.
But I hope you're smiling. And I hope it's real.
You were the best thing that ever happened to me, David. I just wish we'd had more time.
But if I had to trade time for you... I'd still make the same choice.
Forever yours,
Amelia
Her throat tightened.
She hadn't meant to cry. But the words didn't feel like ink — they felt like veins, bleeding truth.
She reached for the second diary with trembling fingers.
David's.
It opened to the first page, and it hit her like a gasp held too long.
> For the girl who smiled for the world, then for me, then finally for herself.
Her chest cracked open.
She flipped the cover.
> You looked like sunlight the first day I saw you. I didn't say anything then. I wouldn't have known how. But you looked like someone who wasn't supposed to be real. I kept thinking if I blinked too hard, you'd vanish.
You talk a lot. I liked that about you. It made silence feel like less of a monster. I wanted to be that brave. I wanted to say the things you said. Even if they broke me.
Page after page bled with the soul of a boy who had so much to say and no time to say it. Scribbled rehearsal notes. Doodles of rain, of smiles, of her. Frustrated lines scratched out. Half-sentences re-written with trembling hands.
In the middle of the book, a dog-eared page:
> There's something I've never told anyone. Not even you. Especially not you. I didn't want to lose what time I had left.
I have a condition. It's rare. They call it Affectional Regression Syndrome. Romantic attachment shortens my lifespan. The stronger the love, the faster it takes me.
And you… you were everything. I was a boy living on borrowed time. And then I met you — and suddenly, I was rich in all the ways that mattered and poor in all the ways that didn't.
I couldn't tell you. I wanted to. A million times. But I knew what love does to me. What it takes. And I couldn't stand the thought of you feeling responsible for my end.
So I smiled with you. Even when it hurt. Even when I felt the clock speeding up inside me. Because I knew… I'd rather die having loved you than live pretending I didn't.
She paused, holding her breath.
The next page was messier. Ink smudged.
> There's a version of me that confesses everything. That tells you the truth. That watches you cry and lets himself be held.
But I was afraid.
Afraid you wouldn't feel the same.
Afraid you would.
She shut the diary like it had teeth.
Silence fell again, this time deeper.
David had loved her. Loved her so much it killed him. And he never told her — because he didn't want to make her carry his death. And Amelia had loved him back, quietly, achingly, always too late.
They were comets, she thought. Beautiful, burning, and always just passing through each other's sky.
She stood there in the aisle for a long time, the books held to her chest like they were warm.
She didn't know who they were.
But now she would never forget them.
Two stories. Two hearts. One final smile shared across time.
She placed the books back side by side.
And maybe — just maybe — she left smiling too.