CHAPTER 29: The Silence Between Notes.

CHAPTER 29: The Silence Between Notes

The door clicked shut behind Eli, but Ava didn't move.

She stood frozen in the gallery's backroom, fingers still wrapped around the envelope he had placed in her hand. The letter in Braille. The one she hadn't opened yet—not because she didn't want to, but because her heart felt like it might split open the moment she did.

Outside the door, the soft echo of Eli's cane tapped against the gallery floor, fading further with each step.

She finally sat.

The light above her flickered once—then steadied, casting a pale glow across the envelope. Her thumb grazed the seal. She breathed in.

And opened it.

The paper was thick, carefully folded, each line pressed gently with dots. She couldn't read Braille—but somehow, the texture alone held a weight, a pulse. This letter wasn't meant for her eyes.

It was meant for her hands.

So she reached for her phone.

It took a minute to find a transcription app that could scan Braille to audio. Her hands trembled the whole time. She pressed play.

Then waited.

A click. A pause.

Then a quiet, artificial voice began:

"I wrote this for you in silence—because the silence is where I feel you the most."

Ava's breath caught.

"I never saw your face—not really. I only knew your voice, the smell of your hair after painting, the way your breath hitched when you were about to cry and pretended you weren't. But still… I knew you."

The voice paused. It sounded too calm to carry the weight behind the words. But Ava could hear the tremor beneath them anyway.

"You were there before the fire. I didn't remember until I heard your name again. I didn't believe it at first. I didn't want to. Because that would mean fate gave me back something I wasn't brave enough to ask for."

Tears slid down her cheeks.

"You once said you paint what music feels like. I didn't understand until I heard your silence. Until your quiet broke something in me that had been sleeping for years."

A sob rose in her throat.

"You don't owe me forgiveness. And I don't ask for it. But if there's one thing I need you to know—it's this: You didn't ruin me."

A pause.

Then the final line.

"You're the reason I learned how to begin again."

The voice stopped. Just a faint hum in the room now, like the breath after a held note.

Ava sat there, phone still in her hand, the letter resting on her lap like a fragile truth. Something sacred.

She didn't wipe the tears. She let them fall.

Then she stood.

She didn't know what she would say when she found him. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe everything. But she had to try.

Because this silence between them?

It wasn't emptiness anymore.

It was a song waiting to begin.