Pages We Never Wrote

The afternoon sun slanted through Alice’s curtains, painting her small apartment gold. The place smelled faintly of coffee and old paper — her kind of comfort. She was cleaning out a drawer when she found it: a worn brown notebook with a broken spine and a small doodle of a heart on the back page.

Her hands stilled.

It was their notebook — the one she and John had filled with half-written stories and impossible dreams. They used to sit in his old apartment, mugs of instant coffee between them, writing about strangers who fell in love in bookstores, at bus stops, or under broken streetlights. John’s handwriting covered the margins — messy and alive.

She traced a familiar line with her finger:

We’ll finish this someday.

Alice felt her chest tighten. Someday. That word used to mean something.

She sat on the floor and flipped through the pages. The story stopped mid-sentence, just before the characters confessed their love. They’d been planning to finish it the night John left for Cape Town — when everything had still felt fixable. But their last conversation wasn’t about the story. It was about timing, distance, and all the ways love can’t compete with ambition.

She remembered the argument — how he said, “We can’t keep building our lives around maybe,” and how she’d watched him walk away with the same notebook in his hand. Somehow, it had found its way back to her.

For years, she told herself she was fine. That she’d outgrown the ache. But holding that notebook, Alice realized healing isn’t forgetting — it’s remembering without breaking.

That night, she opened her laptop and started typing. At first, it was mechanical. She copied sentences from the notebook, filled in small gaps. But soon, her fingers began to move faster. She rewrote dialogue, changed endings, gave her characters the courage she and John never had.

Days turned into weeks. Every morning, she’d sit by the café window and write, her coffee growing cold beside her. Writing became her quiet ritual — her way of talking to him without expecting an answer.

The story that once belonged to them slowly became hers.

She renamed it Pages We Never Wrote. It wasn’t perfect, but it felt true.

When she finally typed “The End,” she stared at the blinking cursor for a long time. There was no sadness, no longing. Just stillness — the kind that follows after a storm.

Months passed. The book was published by a small local press, and to Alice’s surprise, it found its readers. Messages trickled in — people saying her words had healed them, that it felt like she’d written their story too. She smiled at that.

It wasn’t about John anymore. It was about closure, about turning pain into something that could breathe.

Across the city, on a late Friday evening, John stopped at a bookstore after work. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular — just killing time. His eyes drifted to a display near the entrance.

A pale pink cover.

Title: Pages We Never Wrote.

Author: Alice Gray.

For a moment, he couldn’t move. His heart kicked hard against his ribs.

He picked it up. Flipped through the pages.

There it was — the opening line they’d written together years ago:

It started with a cup of coffee and a story neither of them finished.

He felt a chill run through him. Every page echoed with familiarity — the jokes, the rhythm of her sentences, even the silence between them.

By the time he reached the last chapter, his vision blurred. Alice had written about two people who found each other, lost each other, and learned that sometimes love isn’t about staying — it’s about becoming who you’re meant to be.

But in the final lines, her characters met again. Not in the same way, not with the same hearts, but with the same quiet recognition.

When John closed the book, he sat in his car for a long time, gripping the cover. For the first time in years, he didn’t try to reason with the past. He just felt it — the regret, the longing, the love that had never truly left.

He opened his phone and searched for her name.

Her author page popped up — there was a photo of her, sitting by a café window, smiling softly at the camera. Below it, a note: Book signing — Sunday, 3 p.m., Chapter & Brew Café.

He didn’t hesitate.

Sunday arrived quiet and warm. The café buzzed with low chatter and the smell of roasted beans. Alice sat behind a small table stacked with her books, signing copies for readers. She looked calm, radiant in a way that wasn’t loud — the kind of peace that only comes from letting go.

Then the line parted, and she looked up.

John stood there, holding a copy of her book against his chest. He looked older, maybe a little tired, but his eyes — they were the same.

For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke.

Then he smiled, the same crooked smile that used to undo her.

“I read it,” he said softly. “Every page. And I think I’ve been waiting to finish this story for a very long time.”

Her lips curved, trembling just slightly. “You finally read something I wrote all the way through?”

He laughed, and it sounded like a memory coming back to life.

She signed the inside of his book, her hand steady. When she pushed it back toward him, he glanced down.

Under her name, she’d written:

Maybe this is our someday.

The café noise faded around them. It didn’t feel like a grand reunion — just two people quietly finding their way back to the same sentence.

Outside, the late-afternoon light spilled through the windows, warm and forgiving.

For the first time in years, Alice didn’t feel like a character in an unfinished story.

She felt like the author — and this, finally, was her favorite chapter.

~ End ~