The bookstore smelled like paper and roasted coffee beans. It was an oddly comforting mix that reminded me of late nights in libraries I used to escape to after school. The low hum of chatter wrapped around me, punctuated by the occasional flick of a camera or the crisp sound of pages turning.
A girl with braces clutched my novel to her chest, eyes shining like she was about to meet someone famous. That thought still didn't feel real. I wasn't famous. I was just Amelia, someone who used to write in the back of a classroom, pretending words could make up for the ones she never said out loud.
"Can you make it out to Natalie?" the girl asked, sliding a copy of The Truth Between Lines across the table.
I smiled, picking up my pen. "Of course."
My handwriting flowed easily now. Loops and curves practiced from dozens of signings. To Natalie, may your stories always find you. I handed it back and she squealed softly, clutching the book like it was something sacred.
I smiled a bit, seeing how she treasured my book. It quickly faded.
I should've been happy. This was everything I'd worked for. But sometimes success feels strangely hollow when it's built from memories that still ache.
I brushed a strand of hair from my face, catching my reflection in the bookstore window. The afternoon light kissed the copper strands of my strawberry-ginger hair, setting them aglow like embers. Freckles dotted my cheeks faintly—tiny constellations that had refused to fade even after all these years. My brown-hazel eyes looked tired, but there was still a spark in them. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was guilt.
Another reader stepped up, an older woman this time, holding her book carefully as though afraid to crease it."I finished it in one sitting," she said. "The ending broke me. That boy—Eli—he felt so real."
I hesitated. Eli. The name I'd chosen for him in the book.
"Thank you," I murmured, and gave her a polite smile.
She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Is he real?"
The question hung in the air like smoke.
I laughed softly, a deflection perfected over time. "Every character has a little truth in them, don't they?"
She smiled, satisfied with the half-answer, and moved on. I exhaled quietly.
Every character has a little truth in them.But Eli wasn't just a little truth. He was truth. Hidden between every line I'd ever written.
Sometimes I wondered if Ryder would ever stumble upon my book. If he'd recognize himself in the way Eli leaned against the classroom window, pretending not to listen when he always was.Would he know it was him when Eli said, You talk like you're afraid someone might actually listen?
I didn't know whether I wanted him to recognize it or not.
"Miss Hart, five more minutes," said the bookstore manager, a middle-aged man with an earpiece and a clipboard too big for his patience.
I nodded, straightening the stack of unsigned copies beside me. My hand ached faintly, but it was the kind of ache that came from purpose.
A few more readers came and went—faces I didn't know, names I'd forget by tomorrow. They smiled, thanked me, asked the same few questions about writing, inspiration, love.
Love.
That word still made my chest tighten.
Because love, for me, had always been something that lived unfinished. Something left between the lines.
The line dwindled until only a few people remained, chatting quietly. I leaned back, flexing my fingers, savoring the stillness that followed the rush. My heart began to slow, my thoughts starting to drift when—
"Can you sign it to Ryder?"
My head snapped up before my mind had even processed the name.
The young woman who'd asked blinked in surprise, probably confused by my sudden pause. "Oh—it's for my boyfriend," she added quickly. "He's been dying to read it."
"Of course," I said, voice steadier than I felt. My pen scratched the name across the page.
To Ryder. I hope you find your own truth between the lines.
I stared at the words for a heartbeat too long before handing it back. My fingers trembled slightly, but I forced another smile.
It wasn't him. Of course it wasn't.
But the universe has a cruel sense of humor sometimes.
Some part of me was relieved. Another part, wanted it to be him.
The crowd was thinning when I noticed a shift in the air, an almost imperceptible weight pressing at the edges of my awareness. Someone had just walked in, I thought absently, because the murmurs around me changed, subtle, curious, like people noticing something they couldn't name.
I signed another book, thanked another fan, and when I looked up again.
He was there.
Standing near the back of the line, hands shoved into the pockets of a worn jacket, watching me with a stillness that made the world go quiet.
Ryder Gonzales.
The name echoed in my chest like a forgotten song.
He hadn't changed much, not really. His black, messy hair still looked like it had fought against gravity and won. His skin carried the same tanned warmth I used to envy every summer. But it was his eyes. The same piercing green, like sunlight through glass, that rooted me to my chair.
He was taller, broader, older. But unmistakably him.
For a moment, I thought maybe I'd imagined it. That my exhaustion had conjured him from memory, a ghost stepping out of my pages. Or maybe I wanted it to be him, that my mind made me believe that a stranger was him. But then he tilted his head slightly, exactly the way he used to when he caught me staring across the classroom. And I knew.
My heart stuttered.
The pen in my hand slipped, leaving a faint streak of ink on the table.
The bookstore sounds faded, the chatter, the hum of music, even the distant hiss of the espresso machine. All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.
Ryder.
Here.
Now.
I hadn't seen him in ten years.
He moved a little closer, the crowd parting almost unconsciously around him. There was something unreadable in his expression, not anger, not even surprise. Just quiet recognition, like he'd known he'd find me here all along.
Our eyes met.
And just like that, time folded in on itself.
Every hallway conversation, every stolen glance, every unfinished sentence between us came crashing back.
The line of readers shifted forward, but I didn't move. My fingers tightened around the pen as if it could anchor me to this moment.
He smiled, barely, almost imperceptibly.
And in that breath of silence, I realized something terrifying.
He'd read it.
He knew.