I didn't expect anyone to find it. Not really. The book was left like a message in a bottle — meant to drift, maybe disappear.
But someone did find it. Not her. Someone else.
I didn't know at first. Not until the email came. No subject. Just a line in the message:
"Did you leave a story on a park bench?"
Attached was a photo of the book — mine — opened to the page where she smiled sideways, half-finished.
The sender's name was unfamiliar. A man named Aron. He said he found the book by chance, sat down to flip through a few pages… and couldn't leave until he'd finished it all.
He didn't write like someone trying to flatter. He wrote like someone who had been quietly undone.
"I've never read something that felt so... observed," he wrote."Like it wasn't trying to impress anyone. Just trying not to forget."
He asked if I was the artist. I didn't reply right away.
What do you say to someone who's been changed by something you made in silence?
Eventually, I did write back.
Just one sentence:
"Yes, I left it. I didn't expect anyone to read it."
He replied an hour later:
"I did. And I've been trying to find you since."
Aron wasn't from the city. He had just been passing through. Said he visited that park during lunch, and the book felt like something waiting.
We met weeks later at a quiet café. He brought the book, wrapped in brown paper.Didn't ask for a signature. Just wanted to say thank you.
"I think this story matters more than you know," he said, gently sliding it across the table. "I know it wasn't meant for the world. But maybe the world needs more stories like this."
I didn't know what to say. So, I nodded.
Sometimes silence still said the most.
That night, I sat by my window, the book in my lap again — its cover still blank, still untitled.
Maybe I'd print another copy. Maybe not.
But I knew now — it had reached someone.
And maybe that was enough.