Chapter 57: The Letter She Left in My Shoes
The first letter appeared on a Wednesday.
Folded neatly.
Tucked inside my school shoes.
I almost missed it — thought it was a crumpled flyer or someone's old note — but something about the way it was folded, small and careful, made me stop.
I knelt on the floor and slipped it free.
My name was written in tiny cursive across the front. Anya. No surname. Just me.
The paper smelled faintly like green tea and warm laundry.
I unfolded it slowly.
And read:
Dear the girl I cannot stop watching —
Even when we're only one room apart.
Today you laughed in literature class. I saw the way your hair lifted when you tilted your head back. I wish I could've bottled that sound. It would keep me warm on the days I miss you too much.
You weren't looking at me then. But I was looking at you.
I always am.
—O.
I didn't tell her I found it.
Not at first.
I wanted to let it live quietly. Like a hidden bird perched in my chest.
Instead, I slipped a reply into the pages of the music theory book she kept in her locker.
Dear the girl who sees things I don't know I'm showing,
You make everything feel more vivid. Even hallways. Even rainy Tuesdays.
I saw the way you touched the piano today. Like it was something sacred.
That's how I feel when I touch your hand.
—A.
The letters didn't stop.
She left them in places only I would find.
Inside my pencil pouch. Beneath my lunch box. Once, taped beneath the desk we shared in the study room.
Some were long.
Some only a sentence.
But every word was a thread — and soon we'd woven something soft between us, something that wrapped around the days like ribbon.
One evening, she handed me a sealed envelope openly.
Not hidden. Not a secret.
Just pressed gently into my palm as we walked home under the jacaranda trees.
"I want you to read this one before you sleep," she said. "Not before."
"Promise?" she added, tilting her head.
"I promise."
That night, I turned off my lamp and curled beneath my blanket.
I waited until the house was quiet — the refrigerator humming, the wind tapping gently at the shutters.
Only then did I open it.
Anya,
I don't know how to say this without sounding dramatic, so I'll just say it like breath:
You feel like home.
Not in the way where everything is familiar. But in the way where I can take off the armor.
When I'm with you, I don't have to brace myself.
When I look at you, I stop searching for the exit.
I don't need anything from you.
I just love you.
And I think maybe that's enough.
Even if the world doesn't clap. Even if no one says "you two belong."
We already do.
—Yours.
I folded the letter and pressed it against my heart.
Sleep came slowly.
But when it came, it was soft.
A few days later, our literature teacher announced that the annual student art exhibition would be opening next Friday.
Posters appeared in the hallways — bright watercolors, black-and-white portraits, poetry scrolls.
Students buzzed with excitement.
I didn't submit anything this year. I had planned to. But after the rumors started, I'd grown shy. My drawings sat in my drawer, untouched.
Still, I planned to go.
Just to walk through it. To breathe among colors and texture.
I didn't expect to find myself there.
But I did.
The exhibit was held in the upper corridor of Building Three, where the afternoon sun always flooded in from the east-facing windows. Long strips of rice paper hung from the ceiling, painted with verses and brushstrokes that caught the light like stained glass.
I walked slowly, soaking it in.
Then I stopped.
Because there — pinned to the central display board — was a charcoal sketch.
Of me.
Not just my face.
But me.
It wasn't polished. It wasn't posed. My hair was messy. My mouth was mid-smile. But my eyes… they held something the artist had seen too clearly.
Underneath, the title:
The Moment Before She Laughs.
And beneath that:
—by O.R.
My chest fluttered.
I stood there a long time.
I didn't care who looked.
Or who whispered.
All I could think was: She saw me. Not the version I tried to be. Just me.
Later that evening, I found her waiting near the bike rack.
She leaned against the brick wall, hair loose, hands in the pockets of her school jacket.
"You saw it," she said before I could even open my mouth.
I nodded. "I saw it."
"I was scared to show it," she said. "But it felt like the kind of thing that wanted to be seen."
"It was beautiful," I said.
"You're beautiful," she replied.
And I blushed so hard I had to look at my shoes.
She reached out and touched my cheek.
"I wanted to catch the exact second before you laugh," she said softly. "Because that second… it holds everything."
I looked at her. "You always see more than I realize I'm showing."
"That's because I never look away."
That night, I wrote the longest letter yet.
Ten full pages.
I poured everything into it — my fears, my wonder, the way I felt when she looked at me like I was sunlight and not something to hide.
I didn't give it to her.
Not yet.
I placed it in the Heart Box beneath the balcony tile.
Someday, I'll let her read it.
But for now, it belongs to us in the quiet.
The letters continued.
But they became less about longing, and more about joy.
She wrote about the way the sky looked when I smiled.
I wrote about how her laugh made colors sharper.
We weren't hiding anymore.
But we still kept the letters going.
Because some love doesn't need to be shouted.
Some love lives best in the spaces between words.