The Letter Between Us

CHAPTER 1 : The Girl Who Collected Words Mara collected words. Not in the way most people did. She didn't collect them because they were beautiful or because they sounded intelligent. She collected them because she was afraid that one day she would need them and they would disappear. Words she heard on the bus. Words written on old posters. Words spoken by strangers in crowded places. Words from books she borrowed and sometimes forgot to return. And especially words she was too afraid to say. She kept them in notebooks, on scraps of paper, and inside the notes application on her phone. Sometimes, she wrote down only one sentence. Other times, she wrote entire paragraphs. She had a small wooden box beneath her bed where she kept the letters she had never sent. There were letters to her parents. Letters to old friends. Letters to people she had once been angry with. And a few letters addressed simply to herself. Mara had always believed that writing was easier than speaking. On paper, nobody interrupted you. Nobody misunderstood the pause between your words. Nobody looked at you strangely when you admitted that you were afraid. Paper simply listened. That was why she wanted to become a writer. She had told her aunt once. Her aunt had looked at her over the top of her glasses. “A writer?” Mara had nodded. Her aunt sighed. “You need something more practical.” Mara hadn't argued. She had simply gone back to her room that evening and opened her notebook. At the top of a blank page, she wrote: I will become a writer. Then, underneath it, she added: Even if nobody believes I can. She stared at the sentence for a long time. Then she closed the notebook. She didn't know it yet, but that sentence would become one of the most important things she had ever written. --- Mara was twenty when she first noticed the river differently. She had walked beside it many times before. It wasn't particularly beautiful. The water wasn't perfectly clear. The walkway had cracks in some places, and the old benches had been painted so many times that the original colour was impossible to identify. But there was something about the river that made Mara feel calm. It never asked questions. It simply moved. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes quickly. Always forward. On Saturday afternoons, when the university became quieter, Mara would take her notebook and sit beneath the large tree near the river. She liked watching people. A mother holding her child's hand. Old men arguing over something neither of them seemed willing to surrender. Students laughing loudly. Couples sitting close together. People passing through each other's lives without knowing how temporary some meetings could be. Mara wrote about all of them. She didn't always know their names. She didn't need to. She gave them names on paper. That Saturday, she was writing about a woman wearing a yellow dress when someone suddenly spoke beside her. “Excuse me.” Mara ignored him. She assumed he was speaking to someone else. “Excuse me.” She looked up. A young man stood beside the bench. He had a camera hanging from his neck and a backpack over one shoulder. He looked slightly out of breath. “Yes?” “Do you have a pen?” Mara looked at the pen in her hand. Then she looked at him. “You're asking me for a pen while I'm clearly using one?” He smiled. “I noticed.” “Then you know the answer.” His smile grew. “That's a no?” “That's a very clear no.” He laughed. Mara tried not to smile. She failed. The young man noticed. “I'm Daniel.” She raised an eyebrow. “Did I ask?” “No.” “Then why tell me?” “Because I'm hoping you'll eventually tell me your name.” Mara looked down at her notebook. She wasn't sure why, but something about him made her suspicious. Not in a dangerous way. More like the way you become suspicious when something unexpectedly interesting enters an ordinary day. “Why do you need the pen?” Daniel pointed toward his camera bag. “I dropped mine.” “You're a photographer?” “Sometimes.” “Sometimes?” “I take pictures when I'm not pretending I know what I'm doing.” Mara finally handed him the pen. Daniel accepted it with an exaggerated bow. “Thank you.” “Bring it back.” “I will.” “You'd better.” He walked a few steps away, then turned. “Mara.” She froze. “How do you know my name?” Daniel pointed at the notebook. Her name was written across the cover. She looked down. Of course. She had forgotten. Daniel smiled. “See you around, Mara.” She watched him walk away. For several seconds, she didn't write anything. Then she looked at the blank space beneath the woman's yellow dress. Slowly, she wrote: Today, a stranger borrowed my pen. She stopped. Then added: I have a feeling I'll remember him. Mara stared at the sentence. She didn't know why she had written it. Maybe it was simply another observation. Maybe it was the beginning of something. She closed the notebook. Across the river, Daniel lifted his camera. For a brief moment, he pointed it toward the water. Then toward the sky. Then, without warning, toward Mara. She frowned. He lowered the camera immediately. “Sorry!” Mara shook her head. But she was smiling. And for the first time in a long while, the river didn't feel quite as lonely. She didn't know it then, but the boy who had borrowed her pen would soon become part of the story she had been trying to write all her life. And one day, she would write him a letter. A letter she would never send. For now, though, all she knew was his name. Daniel.