Chapter 35: Rain Between the Lines
The rain hadn't stopped since morning.
The world outside Evelyn's window blurred into shades of gray, the kind of gray that made everything feel suspended in time. She sat by the window with her journal open, pen resting between her fingers, but the page was still blank.
She thought she had run out of words to write him. But it wasn't that.
It was that the words had become too heavy.
"Dear Adrian," she finally began, her handwriting slower than usual, more delicate — as if her emotions would bleed through the ink.
"Do you ever feel like the world forgets you exist the moment you're not in front of it? That no matter how loud your heart is beating, you're still invisible?"
She stopped and stared at the sentence. It felt honest. Too honest. But that was what this story had become — a place where the walls she built around her soul cracked just enough for truth to escape.
Across the city, Adrian sat in the old library again — the one Evelyn had taken him to on their second unofficial date. She had said it felt like stories lived there, waiting to whisper secrets to those who listened long enough.
Today, it was the silence that whispered.
He opened the book Evelyn had once slipped into his bag without telling him. Inside was a folded note. He hadn't read it before. Maybe because a part of him was scared it would end something. But now, the ache in his chest told him it was time.
"Adrian, if you're reading this, it means you still care. And maybe... so do I. But I don't know how to love someone without losing pieces of myself. Maybe I'm scared you'll leave before I'm ready to be left. Maybe I already know you will."
He closed the note, the words sinking in like gravity in his bones.
He didn't know she had written that. He didn't know she had feared him leaving.
Back at her apartment, Evelyn touched the glass pane, the cold rain pressing like a memory. She whispered, almost to herself, "If you still remember me, Adrian… then remember I was the one who stayed even after everything fell apart."
The doorbell rang.
She wasn't expecting anyone.
When she opened the door, her breath caught.
There he was.
Wet from the rain, hair clinging to his face, but eyes steady. Adrian didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Instead, he handed her something.
A letter.
Written in the handwriting she hadn't seen in months.
"To the girl I left behind — but never forgot."
She took it. Her hands trembled.
The thousand letters they never sent might finally find their way.