The morning after the poetry reading arrived on tiptoes with sunlight leaking through gauzy curtains and the quiet hum of Everspring stirring awake. Aurora "Rory" Thompson sat at her desk, the scent of yesterday's lavender still clinging to the walls. A steaming cup of tea rested beside her, untouched, as she reread Ethan's note folded inside Leaves of Grass:
"Sometimes, the words we need most are the ones we're too scared to write. E.B."
It wasn't just the words themselves. It was the way they knew her.
No one had ever read her like that.
Not her professors. Not her few, brief relationships. Certainly not her parents, who thought writing was a "hobby" and expected her to do something more practical with her life like teaching math or becoming a nurse.
She tucked the note gently into her journal and closed the cover with care, as if sealing a spell.
By late morning, she was back at The Golden Spine.
The shopkeeper, an elderly woman named Miss Alva, greeted her with a knowing smile.
"Back so soon, dear?" she asked, polishing a mug behind the counter.
Rory nodded. "It's… the kind of place that makes you feel like the stories are waiting for you."
Miss Alva chuckled. "You'd be surprised how many people say that. Writers always seem to find this town when they're looking for something they've lost."
Rory tilted her head. "You mean inspiration?"
Alva's eyes twinkled. "No. Themselves."
Rory opened her mouth to respond, but the doorbell above the entrance chimed and in walked Ethan Blackwood.
She noticed three things at once: his slightly messy dark hair, the brown leather-bound notebook tucked under his arm, and the way his eyes landed on her like he'd been hoping she'd be there.
"Hey," he said casually, but there was a softness behind it.
"Hi," she replied, her voice half breath.
"You read the note?"
She nodded, her gaze lowering. "I did."
"Did it help?"
"I think so," she said. "I wrote last night. First time in a while."
Ethan gave her the kind of smile that felt like sunlight pushing through a cloudy sky.
"Then it did its job."
They walked together to the upstairs reading loft a cozy space with mismatched chairs, old rugs, and a quiet hum of instrumental jazz playing from an old speaker in the corner. It felt far from the world. Far from expectations, deadlines, or the haunting silence that followed rejection letters.
Ethan sat across from her in a faded armchair. His notebook was already open. He glanced up at her with a question.
"Do you ever write in cafés?"
"Sometimes," Rory said. "But I get nervous if anyone looks over my shoulder. It's like someone reading your thoughts before you understand them yourself."
He smiled. "Exactly. It's like... a draft is a confession. A finished piece is a mask."
They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the only sound the scratch of Ethan's pen and the occasional rustle of paper. Rory flipped open her journal but couldn't stop her eyes from flicking to him.
He didn't write like someone thinking. He wrote like someone remembering.
And something about the way his shoulders tensed, then relaxed with each sentence made her realize — he wasn't just playing with words. He was wrestling with them.
"Can I ask you something?" she said quietly.
Ethan looked up.
"Do you ever feel... like the more people like what you write, the more invisible you become?"
His eyes darkened a shade. "All the time."
Rory looked down at her journal. "I didn't expect anyone to care about my writing. When people started sharing it, calling it 'real' and 'raw,' it just made me feel... fake. Like they were seeing something I didn't mean to show. Like I accidentally made a mirror out of my skin."
Ethan's voice was gentle. "You did. And that's why it mattered."
They sat with that for a moment.
Then Ethan flipped a page in his notebook and said, "Wanna trade pieces?"
Rory froze. "Right now?"
He shrugged. "Not because we have to. Just... because sometimes it's easier to hand someone the page than try to explain the storm."
She hesitated, then slowly tore a page from her journal.
Ethan did the same.
They exchanged papers.
She read his poem first. It was short. But every word felt like it had been dipped in blood and memory:
I wrote her name on my ribs,
So I'd never forget where it hurt.
But ink fades.
And so did she.
It wasn't about her but it was. She knew enough about writing to recognize pain camouflaged in poetry.
When she looked up, his eyes were already on her, reading her words:
I shrink myself in every paragraph,
Make myself quieter than the paper,
As if smallness will protect me.
As if being unread will make me invisible enough to matter.
Ethan blinked.
"This is... honest," he whispered.
She looked away, embarrassed.
"It's beautiful," he added, "because it doesn't pretend to be anything else."
They didn't speak for a long time after that.
But something had shifted.
Something had cracked openn not loudly, not messily, but quietly. Like a door creaking just enough to let the light in.
They left the bookstore together that afternoon. The sky was pale blue and bruised with pink at the edges. Leaves scraped along the ground like forgotten thoughts.
As they reached the corner where their paths would split, Ethan paused.
"I come here every Thursday," he said, gesturing back toward the bookstore. "To write. To breathe."
Rory smiled softly. "Maybe I'll come next Thursday too."
He nodded. "Good. The air's better when you're around."
And with that, he turned and walked away, notebook in hand, thoughts tangled in poetry.
That night, Rory wrote until her wrist ached.
Not because she was inspired.
But because for the first time, she wasn't writing for anyone.
She was writing to feel seen.
And maybe just maybe she was starting to believe that someone actually was.