Alia waited until the last light had dipped behind the pines, until the town folded into silence and the wind had begun tapping against the attic window like a patient messenger.
She knew he would come tonight.
She didn't know how—by letter, by shadow, by accident—but something inside her pulsed with quiet certainty. It wasn't just the letters anymore. It was him. He was no longer a mystery written on paper. He was real. Breathing. Watching.
Waiting, too.
She left a candle burning in the window and sat at the edge of the writing desk. No paper tonight. Just herself, wrapped in a sweater two sizes too big, bare feet tucked beneath her.
Then—just past midnight—the floor creaked.
It was soft. Subtle. A whisper of movement.
She didn't turn.
Another step. Then a pause.
The hairs on her arms lifted, but her heart didn't race with fear—it fluttered like wings. Slowly, she turned to face the narrow staircase leading up from the shop below.
There he was.
Silhouetted in the faint glow of the stairwell. Not quite in the room. Not quite out of reach.
His voice came low. Rough with restraint.
"I didn't plan to say anything."
Alia swallowed. Her throat had gone dry.
"You don't have to," she whispered.
A pause. Then a soft, almost breathless chuckle.
"But you'd written back. I didn't expect that either."
Her fingers gripped the arms of the chair. The room was thick with everything unsaid.
"I don't know your name," she said.
Another pause.
"I know," he replied. "That's part of why I could say things I never told anyone. You didn't know me… so you couldn't look at me with pity. Or expectations. Or disappointment."
Alia stood slowly. She took a step forward—but not too close.
"Then why are you here now?"
He exhaled.
"Because you wrote back. And now I can't go back to silence."
They stood in the quiet, the candle flickering between them. She could just make out his profile: strong jawline, messy hair, eyes fixed somewhere on the floor instead of her.
"Can I ask one thing?" she said softly.
He nodded.
"Why me?"
A beat. Then—
"Because the first night I saw you… you looked like I felt. Like you were trying to disappear inside your own skin. But you didn't. You stayed. You wrote back. And something about that…" He looked up, and for the first time, their eyes truly met.
"It made me feel like I could exist again. Not just in words."
Alia's eyes burned. But she didn't cry.
"So this is real?"
His voice was quiet now. Barely a breath.
"More real than anything I've written."
---
He didn't step closer. He didn't reach for her.
But before he left, he whispered:
"Tomorrow, I'll leave you my name."
And then, like every word he'd left her, he disappeared before she could say anything more.