Chapter 3: where the Silence folds

Ava used to love mornings. Back before everything started feeling like static.

Back when her world didn't blur around the edges the moment she woke up.

Now, mornings were just noise. Clocks ticking too loudly. Light coming in too bright. People saying too much or not enough. But today was different.

Today, she woke up with a question stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Who left that note?

The answer should've scared her. Someone had been at her door. Had watched her. Known where she lived.

But instead of fear, it felt like... a thread pulling her forward.

She rolled over and opened the book again, scanning the pages like they might change overnight. They hadn't. But her eyes caught something she didn't remember seeing yesterday.

In tiny handwriting between two stanzas:

"This only works if you don't look away."

Ava stared at the line for a long time.

Then got up, brushed her teeth in silence, and left her apartment without checking her phone.

---

The bookstore wasn't open yet.

She stood outside the gate, hands buried in her coat sleeves, staring through the dusty glass window. It was dim inside—same scattered shelves, same hanging bulb, same weird peace.

She didn't know why she expected to see Eli there already.

Maybe because last night had felt like some kind of accident. Or a glitch.

Or maybe, she just didn't want to go through another day pretending none of this mattered.

She turned to leave—and stopped.

There was something taped to the door.

A torn piece of receipt paper, the kind printed from an old register. On it, scribbled in ink:

> "Check the poetry aisle. Third shelf. Back left."

Her pulse kicked. Just slightly.

She checked the street behind her. Empty.

Hands shaking a little, she reached under the gate, pushed just enough to slide her phone through the bars, and snapped a picture of the note.

Then she waited.

She didn't know what for.

But it felt right.

---

Later that day, her classes blurred together. Nothing the professor said stuck. Notes turned to meaningless loops of ink. When someone asked her about her thesis idea, she mumbled something vague and excused herself early.

She walked back to the bookstore.

It was open this time. The bell above the door rang low and cracked like it hadn't been used in years.

The old man behind the counter gave her a nod. He didn't smile.

He never smiled.

Ava moved to the poetry section.

The third shelf.

Back left.

She crouched, scanning the spines.

Nothing looked different. Nothing looked new.

But her fingers stopped on a book she hadn't seen before—blank spine, no title. Like the one she took yesterday, but older, the cover frayed and soft like something passed through too many hands.

She pulled it out slowly.

A folded napkin fell from between the pages.

Her heart caught as she opened it.

> "Some silences aren't empty.

Some stories don't start at chapter one."

And under that, a name:Eli.

She closed her eyes for a beat. Then sat down on the floor right there in the aisle.

Screw the awkwardness.

She needed to breathe. And this was the only place that made any damn sense right now.

---

Ten minutes passed. Maybe more.

The napkin in her hand had started to crumple from how tightly she was holding it when—

"Didn't expect you to actually find it."

She didn't need to look up.

"You left it for me."

Eli sat down across from her, legs crossed, arms resting on his knees. He looked like someone who belonged on bookstore floors.

He didn't answer her. Just nodded toward the book.

"You ever wonder why the ones with no names are always the ones that hit the hardest?"

Ava blinked. "Because we write ourselves into them?"

He smiled faintly. "Or maybe because someone else already did."

The quiet between them wasn't awkward.

It never was. She studied his face.

There were tired parts of him she hadn't seen yesterday. Slight shadows under the eyes. That half-smile that looked like it cost him something.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"This?"

"The notes. The books. The... breadcrumbs."

Eli's fingers curled into his palm.

He didn't answer right away.

Then: "Because the first time I came here, someone left me a note too."

That shut her up.

His voice dropped lower. "And I ignored it. For months."

He looked down at the napkin. "Until I didn't. And when I followed it, it saved me. So now I pay it forward."

She swallowed. "Is this a game?"

Eli shook his head. "No. It's a warning."

That word hung heavy in the air.

She wanted to ask what he meant. But the way he looked at her—

Like he knew something she didn't yet—

Made her hesitate.

Ava ran her thumb over the edge of the napkin.

"Do I need saving?" she whispered.

Eli didn't flinch.

But his voice went soft. "We all do. Just not always from the same thing."

Ava stood up slowly, brushing imaginary dust from her jeans. Her pulse was steady now—but only because it had dropped into a quiet, expectant hum. Eli didn't move.

"So," she said, trying to keep her voice even, "you're like some kind of... poetry vigilante?"

He smiled. "That's a new one."

"Leaving notes in books for strangers to find."

"Not strangers," he said. "Not really."

His eyes held hers for a little too long. She looked away first.

Ava folded the napkin and tucked it into the book, then placed the book back on the shelf—though she wasn't sure why. It felt wrong to keep it, like stealing a page from someone else's story. She crossed her arms.

"So what now?" she asked.

Eli didn't answer. He stood and stepped past her, walking deeper into the rows between shelves. Something about the way he moved—casual, unhurried—made her follow.

They ended up in a back corner of the store she'd never noticed before.

The lighting here was dimmer, books older, shelves closer together. The kind of section that smelled like dust and forgotten secrets.

Eli stopped beside a narrow cabinet, opened it, and pulled out another nameless book.

This one was different—wider, almost like a scrapbook. He handed it to her without a word.

Ava opened it.

Inside were photos.

Black-and-white. Grainy. People standing in doorways, sitting on rooftops, walking along train tracks. Most of them alone. All of them looking away from the camera.

On the bottom corner of each page, handwritten notes.

> July 18 – She left the window open. I don't think she's coming back.

August 3 – He never wears the scarf. But he kept it.

September 12 – She looked at the rain like it owed her something.

Ava turned page after page, stunned into silence.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Stories that weren't told," Eli said. "Moments that meant something to someone—even if they never said it out loud."

She felt the weight of the book in her hands. It was heavier than paper and ink. It was full of things people had swallowed.

"You wrote these?"

"Some," he said. "Some were left here before me."

She looked up. "Before you?"

He nodded. "This place... it has rules. It finds people. It hides what matters until you need it."

"That sounds... made-up."

"It does," he agreed. "But so does most truth until it smacks you in the face."

Ava bit her lip. The air around her felt thick with stories. Too many things unsaid.

"You said you were warned. That someone left you a note."

Eli nodded.

"What did it say?"

He paused. His voice was quieter when he finally answered.

> "If you keep lying to yourself, you'll forget what was real in the first place."

Her breath caught.

Not because of what the note said.

But because it sounded like something she would write to herself.

Eli looked at her, really looked this time.

"Do you lie to yourself, Ava?"

She froze.

That was the thing about being seen. It didn't always feel good.

She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

Finally: "I used to."

A long silence stretched between them.

"Do you want to remember what was real?" he asked gently.

Her hands tightened around the book.

"I don't know."

"That's okay," Eli said. "But when you do... you know where to come."

He took the scrapbook back from her, placed it carefully in the cabinet again.

Then, without another word, he walked away.

---

That night, Ava dreamt she was running through a library with no windows.

Books whispered her name from every shelf.

And in every one she opened, there was a version of her she didn't recognize—laughing in photographs she'd never taken, kissing boys she'd never met, crying on doorsteps that didn't exist.

Each one felt real.

Each one felt like a life she almost lived.

---l

She woke up gasping.

The ceiling above her bed looked unfamiliar for a second. She had to remind herself where she was.

She sat up, grabbed her phone—still no messages—and then the napkin from her desk. She unfolded it slowly.

> "Some silences aren't empty.

Some stories don't start at chapter one."

Ava turned it over.

On the back, something had appeared. She was sure it hadn't been there before.

> "There's more. If you want to see it."

Her heartbeat thumped in her ears.

This was ridiculous.

She should feel creeped out. Stalked. Maybe even manipulated.

But instead?

She felt seen.

And that was dangerous.

Because being seen meant someone could reach in and touch things she hadn't named yet.

---

The next day, she didn't go to class.

She returned to the bookstore just after noon. A different man was at the counter today—a middle-aged guy with a glass eye and a newspaper under his arm.

He nodded at her like he'd been expecting her.

Ava went straight to the poetry aisle.

The book from yesterday wasn't there.

Neither was Eli.

She stood in the silence for a long time.

Then turned.

A sticky note had been left on the back wall, wedged between two shelves:

> "Some truths only appear when the lie starts to crack."

Below that:

> "Tomorrow. Rooftop. Sunset."

No name. But she didn't need one.

She reached up, took the note, and walked out of the store without saying a word.