"He didn't know who the words were meant for.
And yet, somehow… they felt like they'd been waiting for him all along."
________
Kael Renford woke to the sound of wind slipping through the window latch.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't jarring. But it stirred something in him, like the soft crack of ice breaking underfoot—not enough to fall, just enough to notice.
He rubbed his eyes, sat up slowly, and stared at the notebook on his desk. He had left it open last night. His handwriting was uneven, hurried, as though someone else had taken over the pen.
He leaned closer and read the final line he didn't remember finishing:
> "Someone has been writing about me...
But they don't want to be found."
Kael frowned, tracing the words with his finger. He couldn't recall the moment he wrote them. The thought must've bled from somewhere deeper, from a part of him still tangled in dreams.
Lately, he'd been writing more. But it wasn't for assignments, or even poetry practice. It was something else—something reactive. As if each day was leaving behind a subtle trace in him, and he could only respond by recording what he couldn't explain.
He shook his head and stood, walking to the window.
The sky was the color of paper left out in rain. Edinburgh was quiet. From here, he could almost see the roof of The Quill & Rain, the café where words often clung to the walls longer than people did.
He didn't know why, but lately he felt like someone was there. Someone near him. Someone who hadn't said a word—but had been speaking all along.
---
In Professor Thorne's lecture, the class sat hunched over their notebooks, brows furrowed in thought. The topic of the day: poetry as the voice of the unspeakable.
Kael tried to focus, but his thoughts felt like pages being flipped too fast to read.
Professor Thorne paced between rows of desks, then stopped and spoke gently:
—"Today, I want you to write. Just one poem. Anonymously. No titles. No names. Just imagine you're speaking to someone you can't speak to in real life."
The room stilled.
Kael stared at the blank page in front of him. Then, slowly, as if his hand moved on its own, he began to write:
> "Your silence never left the room.
Even when you did."
It wasn't a poem, not really. It was a truth—buried, rising. He didn't know who it was for. Or maybe, he did, but the name hadn't reached him yet.
Professor Thorne stopped behind him, glanced down, and asked softly:
—"Do you know who this is about?"
Kael looked up. His mouth opened.
But no words came.
He shook his head once, quietly.
---
That afternoon, Aerish Elowen stood near the tall windows of the university library. Her fingers skimmed the spines of the poetry section, but her mind wasn't there.
She was watching him.
Kael had just returned a copy of Letters to a Young Poet—the very one she had slipped her folded letter into, hidden between Rilke's third letter and the notes on loneliness.
She watched as Eliah Rowan took the book, scanned it in, and placed it on the return shelf.
Kael didn't stay long. He took another book, nodded to Eliah politely, and left.
Aerish stepped closer to the returned shelf once he was gone.
Her fingers hovered over the book.
She didn't open it.
She didn't need to.
> "He'll find it tonight," she thought, clutching her coat tighter.
"He'll read it. And he won't know it's from me. But maybe... something inside him will remember."
Eliah, from behind the counter, said nothing. But as she turned to go, he gave her a glance of understanding—wordless, soft, and unwavering.
He wouldn't say anything. He never did.
---
That night, Kael sat by his window, the book open on his lap.
A small, folded page fell out and landed gently on the carpet.
He stared at it for a moment.
Unfolded it.
Read once.
Then again.
And again.
> "I don't love you to be loved back.
I love you so I don't lose myself in the silence."
Kael stared at the paper for a long time.
The handwriting was neat. Light. Measured.
The kind of handwriting that knew how to hide behind words.
He read the note a fourth time, then reached for his own notebook and copied the line down, slowly, carefully. At the bottom, he wrote:
Voice unknown, but familiar.
He sat there long after the candle burned low, his eyes searching the night beyond the glass.
> "Who are you?"
"Why does it feel like you've been here all along?"
---
Elsewhere on campus, Aerish sat by her own window, her breath fogging the glass.
She didn't write tonight.
She didn't need to.
She had already said something that mattered.
Instead, she watched the stars.
And she wondered, with quiet ache:
> "Did you read it, Kael?
Did even a part of you feel me in that silence?"
---
Kael walked into the garden just past midnight. The air was cold and sharp, but he didn't feel it.
He sat on the stone bench beneath the statue of the old poet—the one whose gaze always looked a little too knowing.
Kael opened his notebook again and stared at the page.
His handwriting looked foreign, like it had come from someone else.
> "Someone is writing about me.
Someone who doesn't want to be found."
He looked up at the sky.
The clouds were moving slowly, unhurried.
And for the first time in weeks, Kael spoke aloud:
—"If you're out there…
Whoever you are…
Why do your words sound like something I've been waiting to hear?"
---
Back in her room, Aerish whispered into the candlelight:
"If one day you speak to me…
I hope it's because something inside you finally heard me."
______
"If you ever speak to me one day…
I hope it's because something in you finally heard me."