Chapter 12 PIECES OF A PUZZLE
Elias
The fourth letter came on Saturday.
Elias was grading papers in the campus café when his phone buzzed. Professor Hartley.
Hartley: Pink envelope in your box. Thought you’d want to know.
His pen stopped mid-sentence. Red ink bleeding across a student’s essay about Fitzgerald. He didn’t care.
The café was crowded. Weekend study groups and couples sharing coffee. Elias left his papers scattered across the table and walked out into the cold.
The English department building was quiet on Saturdays. His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. The mailroom smelled like printer toner and old carpet.
The envelope was pink this time. Heart-shaped paper visible through the translucent edge.
Elias took it back to his car. His hands shook as he opened it.
E,
I read your letter on a bench outside the library. The same bench where I read your first response. I think it might be becoming our bench, even though you’ve never sat on it.
Elias smiled despite himself. Our bench. Like they were building something together out of words and waiting.
You said the answer is yes. I’ve been carrying that word around all evening. Yes. It feels like a door opening. Like possibility.
His chest felt tight. Good tight. Like hope taking up space.
You asked what makes me feel real. Honest answer? Writing to you. Watching you read, even though I know I should stop. Early morning before the campus wakes up. The smell of old books. My roommate’s terrible singing. Small things that feel huge when I’m paying attention.
They had a roommate. Lived in the dorms, probably. That made them younger. An undergrad. Maybe a junior or senior based on the three-year comment from before.
Elias was building a picture. Piece by piece.
You asked what makes me want to hide. Also honest? Everything else. Crowds. Eye contact. The feeling that everyone else got an instruction manual for being human and I missed it somehow. The gap between who I am on paper and who I am in person.
God, Elias knew that feeling. That exact feeling. The performance of being normal when nothing felt normal at all.
You said you felt me watching. I didn’t know that was possible. I tried to be invisible. But maybe invisible isn’t the same as not being there. Maybe you can feel attention even when you can’t see it.
Invisible. Trying to be invisible. Elias thought about the library, about all the students who blurred together. Quiet ones in the back. Those who tried not to take up space.
I want to tell you more. I want to tell you everything. But I’m scared that if I tell you too much, you’ll put pieces together and know who I am, and then this ends. And I’m not ready for it to end.
Elias’s stomach dropped. They thought telling him would end things. Thought being known would ruin this.
Is that selfish? Probably. But you make me feel brave and terrified at the same time, and I don’t know what to do with that except keep writing.
Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for existing. Thank you for making the world feel less impossible.
Someone who sees you
Elias read it twice more. Then pulled out his phone.
He scrolled through his photos. Found the ones from the library last week. Study session with his friend from the graduate program. Background full of students at tables.
He zoomed in. Studied faces.
Someone quiet. Someone is trying to be invisible. Someone who watched him read.
His phone rang. His sister again.
“You sound weird,” she said immediately.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re thinking about the letters.”
“Maybe.”
“Have you figured out who it is yet?”
“No.” Elias stared at the photo. A dozen students, any of them could be the one. “They’re scared I’ll figure it out. Scared it’ll end if I know.”
“Will it?”
“No.” The answer came fast. Sure. “I don’t think so.”
“Then tell them that.”
Elias hung up and sat in his car for a long time. The letter rested on his lap. Outside, students walked past. Laughing. Normal. None of them knowing that inside this car, someone was falling for a person he’d never met.
He drove home. Made coffee he didn’t drink. Sat at his desk and opened his laptop.
Started typing.
Dear Someone Who Sees Me,
I read your letter in my car in the parking garage. I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to figure out what to say. So here’s the truth.
You’re wrong about one thing. You said you’re scared that if I put pieces together and know who you are, this ends. But here’s what I know: whoever you are in person can’t be worse than who you are on paper. And who you are on paper makes me feel more seen than anyone has in years.
His fingers moved faster.
You said there’s a gap between who you are on paper and in person. I have that gap too. In letters, I’m honest. In person, I’m performing. Pretending I have everything together when really I’m just trying not to fall apart.
So if you’re scared of being disappointing, don’t be. Because I’m scared of the same thing. Scared you’ll meet me and realize I’m not worth the words you’ve been writing. That I’m just some TA who grades papers and reads alone and doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life.
He paused. Read what he’d written. Kept going.
You asked if it’s selfish to want to keep this anonymous. It’s not. Take your time. Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.
But can I tell you something? I want to know you. Not just the you on paper. The you who has a roommate with terrible singing. The you who likes early mornings and old books. The one who tries to be invisible but sees everything.
I want to know what your voice sounds like. What you order at coffee shops. If you bite your nails when you’re nervous. All the small things that make you real.
But only when you’re ready. Only when it doesn’t scare you anymore.
He stopped typing. Stared at the screen. This was too much. Too honest. Too close to asking them to reveal themselves.
He kept it anyway.
Thank you for your letters. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for making me want to be seen.
E
He printed it. Folded it into an envelope. Addressed it with hands that didn’t shake.
Tomorrow he’d mail it. Tomorrow his words would travel to someone sitting on their bench. Someone who was building a picture of him just like he was building a picture of them.
Someone who was scared this would end.
Elias looked at his correspondent’s letter again. At the careful handwriting. The heart-shaped paper.
Small things that feel huge when I’m paying attention.
His correspondent paid attention. Watched him in the library. Tried to be invisible while seeing everything.
Elias pulled up his photos again. Zoomed in on the background students. There. Someone in the back corner. Face turned away. Dark hair. Oversized cardigan.
Too blurry to tell for sure. But maybe.
He saved the photo. Closed his laptop.
Outside, the sun was setting. Campus lights flickering on one by one. Somewhere out there, his correspondent was existing. Breathing. Maybe writing another letter.
Maybe thinking about him the way he was thinking about them.
Elias touched the envelope on his desk.
Only when you’re ready, he’d written.
But god, he hoped they’d be ready soon.