Some people collect coins. Others collect regrets. I collect unsent letters.
That's the first sentence in the blue diary I keep under my pillow, its pages filled with emotions that aren't mine — not entirely.
My name is Aarya. I was born without sound. People say I live in silence. They're wrong. I live in stories.
Every morning, I open the community library's side gate, careful not to make a sound I can't hear. The bell above the door chimes — a sound I've never known — but I feel the air shift. It's enough. The old wooden floor greets me with creaks like familiar footsteps. This place smells like paper and time.
I sit behind the help desk, though no one really needs help with books anymore. What they need is to say things they can't say out loud.
That's where my secret job begins.
There's a small typewriter in the back room. It's ancient, but it works. People come and leave slips of paper with scribbled emotions — things they never said. I turn them into letters. Typed. Unnamed. Unsent.
Today, someone left a note:"Tell her I still remember the way she danced with her shoes off, even when the floor was cold."
I don't know who wrote it, or who it's for. But I type the letter anyway and place it in the "Unsent Letters" box under the poetry shelf. I imagine someone will read it someday. Maybe not the right person, but someone. That's enough.
It's always enough — until the day he walked in.
I remember the moment clearly: Tuesday, 4:37 PM. The light from the window turned gold as the boy stepped inside. He didn't look around. He didn't need to. He walked straight to the piano in the corner — the one nobody plays.
He sat down like the piano had been waiting for him.
And he played.
I couldn't hear it, of course. But I watched. His fingers moved with fury and softness all at once. His eyes closed, and his chest rose and fell like the music was breathing for him.
The other patrons froze, then whispered. I saw tears in the eyes of an old woman by the window.
He played for four minutes and thirty-two seconds.
Then he stood up and left — without saying a word, without looking at anyone.
And I sat there wondering…
What kind of boy plays music like that, and never comes back?