Chapter 17: Pages Between Us

The rain had returned, soft and unhurried, turning the day into a quiet poem. We stayed inside, wrapped in blankets and each other, with mugs of tea steaming between our hands. You disappeared for a moment and came back holding something behind your back.

A notebook.

Not new. Worn at the edges, filled with ink and thought.

"I've been writing," you said, eyes shy but proud. "About us."

You placed it in my hands, and I opened it slowly. Page after page, I saw us captured in words, in sketches, in pressed flowers from walks we barely remembered taking. Your handwriting danced across the pages like a voice I already knew by heart.

Some parts were quiet observations. Others, raw confessions. Every word, a part of you I already loved, now given to me in a new way.

I looked up at you, my heart full.

"I want to do the same," I said. "Let's fill the rest together."

So we did on the couch, with our legs tangled, your head on my shoulder, pen passing between us. Laughter, memories, dreams. It all found a place between those pages.

And when the rain stopped, and the sun returned, we had something new our story, written in the spaces only we understood.