Midnight Books & Forgotten Kisses

“Moonlight Books – Open Only from Midnight to 4 AM.

No one knew who owned the place. Some said the store had no register. No cameras. Just a single keyhole and a creaky floor that remembered every step. But the shelves? They whispered. Not in words, but in warmth. The kind of warmth that touches you when a book falls open to the exact page your soul needed.

It was on one such night — a Monday where the moon hung full and heavy — that she first left the note.

The woman with the long gray scarf and the quiet heart.

She had always loved words more than people. Words didn’t lie. Didn’t cheat. Didn’t disappear in the morning. And so she scribbled her heart in blue ink on a torn library card and slipped it into a dog-eared copy of *The Bell Jar*.

> *“If you find this, know that you’re not alone. The night feels safer than the day, doesn’t it? I come here because I’m tired of pretending to be okay. Maybe you are too."*

>

> — *L.*

She didn’t sign her name. Just the single letter. Enough to be human, not too much to be known.

Three days later, she returned.

The book had moved.

A sticky note was waiting on the front page.

“Dear L. You are not alone. I only come here after midnight because the world feels softer when it’s sleeping. I didn’t expect company in the silence. But I’m glad you left your echo behind.”*

*J.

Her fingers trembled.

Her lips curled into the first smile that hadn’t felt forced in months.

And so began the letters.

They never saw each other. Only left notes in the same book — sometimes switching it out for others: *Wuthering Heights*, *Norwegian Wood*, *On Love and Loneliness*. Their words became longer. Braver. More fragile. Sometimes angry. Sometimes aching. But always true.

I lost someone.”*

> *“I’ve never been loved.”*

> *“I miss being kissed for the first time again.”*

And eventually…

“I dream of your voice.”*

> *“I want to meet you, but I’m afraid we’ll ruin the magic.”*

> *“I want to kiss you under this bookstore’s moonlight.”*

Each night, they described where they sat:

“Corner near the travel books.”

“On the floor under the poetry section.”

“Behind the Greek mythology shelf.”

Always just missing each other. Like ghosts chasing warmth.

Then came the night that changed everything.

She left a new note, one that almost didn’t fit in the margins.

*“J. I can’t stop thinking about you. I walk through the city wondering if you’ve passed me without knowing. I reread your words like prayers. I imagine your hands, your eyes, your mouth… I imagine kissing you in the rain."*

> *I need to know — if you feel this too.*

> *Meet me next Friday. Same time. Same place. But this time, leave your name.

> I’ll do the same.*

>

> — *L. (Lauren)*

That night, she wore red lipstick. Something she hadn’t worn since her engagement was broken off a year ago.

She waited for hours, pressing the note between her fingers, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird.

But no one came.

No new letter.

No name.

No *J.*

She didn’t go back for weeks. The pain felt too much like abandonment all over again. Like being stood up by hope itself. Until one stormy night, she passed the bookstore again… and paused.

The bell jingled.

The door creaked.

The lights flickered warm.

She walked to the poetry aisle where their notes had last danced, not expecting anything.

But there, wedged between Neruda and Rumi, was a single envelope.

**To L.

Her hands shook as she opened it.

*“You were there. I was too. I saw you from the shadows. You were even more beautiful than I imagined. But I… I panicked.*

>

> *Because what if you didn’t like what you saw?”*

*“I was once badly burned — by someone who told me they loved me, then left when I revealed all that I was. It scarred me, Lauren. Not just my heart, but my mind.”*

>

> *“But I can’t lose you. So I’ll be brave this time.”*

>My name is Jamie.*

> *I’ll be waiting next Friday. No shadows. No more almosts.*

> *You in red lipstick. Me in the blue sweater. Let’s meet beneath the books, and above the world."*

>

> — *Jamie*

The next Friday, she didn’t just wear the red lipstick. She wore a blue scarf he once said he liked in a note.

When she walked in, he was already there.

And the world slowed.

Jamie had olive skin, stubble that begged to be kissed, and kind eyes that looked like they knew sadness intimately — and chose to love anyway.

He stepped forward.

“So… red lipstick,” he smiled, voice soft.

So… blue sweater,” she breathed.

They stood inches apart.

“I thought maybe I built you up too much in my head,” he whispered.

“And?”

“You’re even better than the poems.”

They didn’t need to say anything else.

Their lips met in the aisle of ancient poetry. First slow, like a promise. Then hungry, like a lifetime of loneliness crashing against hope.

His hands cupped her face. Hers ran through his hair.

The kiss deepened.

He pinned her gently to the bookshelf, lifting her slightly, their breaths tangled like ribbon.

I read your notes in bed,” he murmured between kisses, “imagining your mouth… now I can’t stop.”

“Then don’t,” she whispered, pulling him closer.

They spent hours there, pressed against shelves, books falling unnoticed around them. Fingers traced skin. Lips mapped collarbones. She gasped his name like a verse. He moaned hers like a prayer.

They didn’t make love that night.

But it felt like they had — with just their mouths, their words, their truths.

From then on, *Midnight Books* became their secret universe.

They still wrote notes, even after kisses became common. Notes of desire. Notes of confession.

> *“I want you in my bed and in my coffee.”*

> *“I’m terrified of losing this.”*

> *“Promise me we’ll never stop writing.”*

And poems.

Oh, the poems.

*From Jamie to Lauren:**

Your laugh breaks silence like thunder with flowers.*

> *Your lips taste like honesty and cinnamon.*

> *If I die, bury me between your sighs.*

> *You are the last unread page I’ll ever need.*

From Lauren to Jamie:**

*I found you inside a paragraph I didn’t know I wrote.*

> *Your breath became my bookmark.*

> *You didn’t save me — you showed me I could rewrite myself.*

> *You are my midnight, my ink, my echo.*

One year later, on the exact day they met face-to-face, he slipped a small velvet box inside a copy of *Pride & Prejudice*.

She opened it while reading the note inside:

You once wrote you wanted to be kissed under the bookstore moonlight.*

> *How about kissed… forever?”*

She looked up, eyes wet, lips trembling.

And there he was.

Down on one knee.

In a bookstore that only opened when the world was asleep — but their hearts were wide awake.

And they say to this day, if you walk into Moonlight Books after midnight and pull out a poetry book…**

You might just find a note.**

A beginning.**

*A kiss waiting to be written.**

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