One more beggining
448 Words
The last week of December was colder than usual. Snow fell in soft flurries, coating the sidewalks and softening the world into quiet.
Marshel packed her bags in slow stages. Not because she was second-guessing—but because she understood now: endings aren’t always sad. Sometimes, they’re just beginnings wearing winter coats.
Kobe helped her carry boxes to her car. Neither of them said much, just worked in tandem—like always.
That night, they sat cross-legged on his dorm floor, eating takeout and flipping through his sketchbook. On one page, she saw herself—not posed or polished, but yawning into her coffee cup, hair wild, eyes half-lidded with sleep.
“You make me look softer than I am,” she said.
“No,” he replied, tapping the sketch with his pencil. “I just draw the parts the world forgets to see.”
---
The next morning, she was leaving.
They stood in the parking lot as the engine warmed, snow gathering in her curls.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, voice trembling. “Not of going. Of going without you.”
Kobe reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a tiny notebook—worn, hand-stitched, no bigger than her palm.
“What’s this?”
“Sketches. Of you. Of us. Of the places I want us to go.” He paused. “Add to it when you can. Write. Draw. Spill coffee on a page. Make it real.”
She turned the pages slowly, lips pressed together. “This feels like a love letter disguised as a book.”
He smiled. “It is.”
---
In New York, the city moved faster than she remembered.
Her mornings were caffeine and deadlines. Her nights, silence and dreams she hadn’t unpacked yet. She left notes for herself on sticky pads. Listened to Kobe’s voice messages before bed.
The notebook lived in her coat pocket.
She filled it with subway sketches. Coffee shop poems. One page simply read:
> Still yours, even here.
Kobe, back on campus, painted more than he ever had. Marshel's absence filled the canvas like a presence all its own. Not an ache—just a reminder.
They didn’t talk every day, but the space between them became less scary.
Because it wasn’t absence anymore.
It was trust.
---
One day, a package arrived at Kobe’s door. Inside: the notebook, returned, now twice as thick.
Taped to the cover was a note.
> I wrote you into this city.
And it still doesn’t feel full without you.
> What would you say to one more beginning?
---
He didn’t write back right away.
Instead, he booked a ticket.
TO BE CONTINUED...
- Writer
