It had been two days since that conversation at the café. And yet, every word still clung to me like the scent of old perfume—lingering in my scarf, whispering against the collar of my coat, echoing faintly in the corners of my thoughts. I tried to go back to the rhythm of my days, to let work swallow me whole, to lose myself in the rustle of book pages and the hum of the coffee machine at the bookstore. But every now and then, I would find my gaze drifting toward the door, wondering if he'd walk in again. Just like that. Like he had the first time. Like he always did. I hadn't told anyone I'd seen Khánh again. Not Linh. Not even myself, not properly. I tried to pretend that it was just coincidence—that a man holding my book at a literary fair was just a stranger. But no. Not with the way he looked at me, not with the way my name fell from his lips like it had always belonged there. There was no pretending with Khánh.
Tonight, I walked home slower than usual, dragging my feet like they were weighed down by memories. The wind picked up, and I tugged my coat tighter. Autumn had finally arrived—not in the dramatic sense, no flurry of red leaves or rain-soaked sidewalks—but in the quiet way the air shifted, and the city dimmed a little earlier. I turned the key into my apartment, and the familiar creak of the door welcomed me like an old friend. The lights hummed on, soft and golden. I placed the bag of groceries on the counter, shrugged off my coat, and let the silence envelope me.
Usually, I liked the quiet. I had built my life around it—learned to cherish its boundaries like a well-worn book spine. But tonight, the quiet felt heavier. It echoed too loudly. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat by the window, the same spot where I used to write late into the night. My journal lay open, blank. There was so much I wanted to write. So much I didn't know how to say. I thought about the way Khánh had slid that notebook across the table. About the words scrawled inside it. About the sentence I hadn't been able to forget. "She always seemed like she belonged somewhere else, but stayed anyway." Was that really how he saw me? Or was that how I had been—too afraid to leave, too afraid to stay?
Outside, the streetlights flickered on. A couple walked by, sharing a single umbrella. I wondered how long they'd been together. If they still whispered their love in the dark. If they still remembered their first coffee shop, their first fight, their first everything. Khánh and I never had a real "first" anything. Not a real anniversary. No shared apartment. No photos on the fridge. We existed somewhere in the in-between—a thousand moments stolen between seasons. A love never fully claimed, never fully given up. But maybe that was why it still lingered.
Suddenly, I reached for my phone. And paused. He hadn't messaged. He hadn't called. He hadn't even liked the recent post I'd made about the book. But I knew he had read it. So I typed. "Thank you... for showing me your notes." Simple. Neutral. Safe. And then I stared at it for five minutes. Then ten. And finally, I erased it all. Instead, I closed the app, placed the phone screen-down, and picked up my pen. If I couldn't speak to him, maybe I could write. I started with a single line: "This is what I never said out loud." The words came slowly, haltingly. But they came.
I wrote until my tea turned cold and the stars had moved across the sky. I didn't name the characters. I didn't need to. I knew exactly who they were. A woman who had learned to love in silence. A man who had left before he could be loved fully. A city that never asked questions but always remembered. The next morning, I found myself outside the bookstore earlier than usual. I wanted the quiet before the customers came in. The morning light crept in through the glass windows, and I wiped down the counter with a slow rhythm. Familiar. Soothing. I looked up at the sound of the doorbell, and my breath caught.
Khánh.
He stood in the doorway like he had all the other times—quiet, unreadable, a storm behind the calm. He looked different today. Or maybe I just hadn't seen him like this in so long: a little tired, a little softer around the edges. He held something in his hand. A letter. "You forgot this," he said. I didn't remember forgetting anything. But I took it. Our fingers brushed. Just barely. Electricity.
"It's not much," he continued, "just something I wrote after that night."
I didn't open it. Not yet. I nodded, feeling the weight of his gaze on me. He hesitated, like he wanted to say more, but didn't. Then he left.
I held the envelope all day. Tucked it under books, moved it across counters, placed it beside my laptop. It wasn't until I was home again, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the window, that I finally opened it. His handwriting filled the page. Neat, careful. Like every word had been measured. It wasn't a love letter. It wasn't an apology. It was a map. A map of what we were. A list of moments I had forgotten. A sentence from that night at the rooftop. A quote from the short story I never published. The first poem I had written but never dared to share.
I cried.
Not the loud kind. Not the theatrical kind. The quiet kind that comes from deep recognition. From knowing someone had, in their own way, never truly left. I placed his letter beside my journal, closed them both, and whispered into the silence, "Maybe we were never meant to forget."
And for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel alone.