Chapter Five: Across the Silence
The third letter came on a Tuesday. I nearly missed it.
It had been an exhausting day—the kind that saps even the smallest joy out of breathing. A student had cried during office hours, not because of grades but because her boyfriend had ghosted her after four years. "He said he loved me every day," she sobbed, mascara running, "but I guess love is just a habit we break when it's no longer convenient."
I'd nodded, gently placed a hand on hers, and said all the things a lecturer is supposed to say. You'll be okay. This isn't the end. Take time. Heal. But inside, her words burrowed into me. Because they weren't hers alone. They were mine.
Love as a habit. Love as convenience. Love as a silent betrayal.
By the time I arrived home, I wanted nothing more than to collapse. But there it was—resting atop a brown envelope of returned student essays—another letter.
My hands didn't shake this time. They moved with purpose. Like they knew something my heart hadn't caught up to yet.
It wasn't long. Barely a page. But every word settled in me like truth.
> Dear You,
I've been walking more. Thinking more. There's a tree near my flat—tall, wild, messy in all the ways a city tree shouldn't be. I like it. It reminds me that life doesn't always need pruning to be beautiful.
You write like someone who's been silenced before. Someone who learned early to speak softly, to carry the weight of other people's comfort.
But grief deserves a voice. So does betrayal.
I don't think you're writing to be heard anymore. I think you're writing because somewhere, deep down, you know you were right to feel it all.
That's courage.
Write again if you want. Or don't. Either way, I'll keep the window open.
Yours,
Lark
I read it twice. Then a third time.
This wasn't sympathy. It wasn't flattery. It was… recognition. The kind that wraps around you like a coat you didn't know you needed.
I didn't write back immediately. Instead, I went to the window. London was softly glowing beneath the streetlamps. Rain misted the glass. The city was alive but not loud.
And I let myself feel everything. The grief. The unfairness. The bittersweet comfort of being known by someone who didn't know my name.
The next day, I skipped the Tube and walked to campus. I wore my old coat with the missing button. I stopped for coffee and drank it slowly. I didn't rush. And when Maisie's name popped up on my screen, I didn't delete it.
I didn't open it either.
Progress, I figured, was measured in restraint as much as action.
That weekend, I found an old journal under my bed. Tattered and half-empty, with ink stains on the back cover. I opened to a blank page and wrote—not to Lark, not to anyone—but to myself.
"Today I stood still and it didn't hurt."
I hadn't realised how much I'd missed myself.
That night, I wrote to Lark again.
> Dear Lark,
I've never liked my name. It always felt borrowed—like I was playing dress-up in someone else's life. But lately, I've started whispering it to myself again. Practising ownership.
You were right about grief. And writing. And pruning. You were right about a lot.
There's a pub near my flat with an old jukebox and a red leather booth that always squeaks when I sit down. I've started going once a week with a notebook. Just to be in the world. Just to remember I exist outside of pain.
Last week, someone sang terribly off-key to "Can't Help Falling in Love." I laughed out loud. A real laugh. It surprised me.
Thank you for leaving the window open. I think I'm doing the same.
—Still Me
I sealed the envelope and posted it the next morning. My fingers were cold, my coat collar damp with fog, but something inside me pulsed with warmth.
Connection.
The silent, sustaining kind that doesn't demand more than you can give.
The kind that makes you believe in beginnings again.
Even after the ending already happened.