THE UNWANTED DAUGHTER -IN- LAW

EPISODE 6- WRITING TOGETHER

The bell above the door of The Book Bean jingled at exactly 10:16 AM.

I was already there.

I had come ten minutes early on purpose. My hands were sweating and the blue notebook in my lap felt heavier than it should have. Mrs. Sharma was wiping the counter and humming a song I didn’t recognize. She looked at me, then at the empty chair across from me, and smiled like she already knew.

“He’ll come,” she said softly. “Boys like him always come back when someone waits for them.”

I didn’t answer. I just nodded and stared at the door.

At 10:17 AM, it opened.

Neil.

He wasn’t wearing the black hoodie today. He wore a faded blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair was still messy, but there was something different. He looked... lighter. Or maybe I just wanted to believe that.

In his hand was the same worn notebook. The one I had seen a hundred times.

He saw me. He paused for half a second. Then he walked in and sat down across from me without saying a word.

Two coffees were already on the table. Black, no sugar. His.

And for me, the caramel latte I always pretended I didn’t want but secretly loved.

Silence.

The kind that makes you want to fill it, but also makes you afraid to.

“So,” Neil said finally, his voice rough. “You brought it.”

He nodded at my notebook. New. Blue. Untouched.

“Yeah,” I said. “I thought... maybe today we could write.”

He let out a small breath. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.

“Write,” he repeated. “Together.”

“Only if you want to,” I added quickly. “We don’t have to. We can just drink coffee and—”

“No,” he cut me off. “I want to.”

He opened his notebook. The pages inside were full of crossed-out lines and angry scribbles. But today, he turned to a fresh page.

“One rule,” he said. “No lying. No pretending. We write what’s true.”

“Deal,” I said. My pen was shaking a little.

For the first ten minutes, neither of us wrote anything. We just sat there, listening to the sound of the espresso machine and the rain starting outside the window.

Then Neil wrote something. One line. He didn’t show me.

I wrote something too. My handwriting was messy.

`She thought the dark would never end. Then someone brought her a light.`

I slid the page toward him. Slowly. Like it might burn me.

He read it. He didn’t speak for a long time. Then he picked up his pen and wrote underneath my words.

`The light was never out. People just stopped looking at it.`

When I read that, something in my chest cracked open.

“That’s... that’s really good, Neil.”

“You started it,” he said. And for the first time, he almost smiled. A real one.

After that, we didn’t stop.

He would write a paragraph and push the notebook to me. I would read it, my heart pounding, and then write the next part.

Sometimes we wrote about the boy in the café who didn’t believe in endings.

Sometimes we wrote about the girl who worked there and believed in them too much.

Sometimes we just wrote about the rain.

At one point, Mrs. Sharma came over and refilled our coffees. She looked at both our notebooks, open and full, and didn’t say anything. She just squeezed my shoulder and walked away.

By 11:45, we had filled four pages.

My hand hurt. My eyes hurt. But I didn’t want to stop.

Neil closed his notebook first.

“Enough,” he said. “For today.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

He looked at me. Really looked at me.

“Thank you,” he said. “For... not giving up on me. Even when I gave up on myself.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I just nodded.

He stood up. Slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Same time next Saturday?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said too fast. “Yes. Same time.”

He walked to the door. Stopped. Turned back.

“Hey. Bring two notebooks next time.”

“Why?”

“One for you. One for me,” he said. “We’re going to need more pages.”

And then he was gone.

I sat there for a long time after he left. The café was warm and noisy again, but it felt quiet to me.

I looked down at my notebook. At his handwriting under mine.

At the words we had made together.

That night I couldn’t sleep. So I typed it all out.

I called it Episode 6.

I wrote about how healing doesn’t always look like fireworks.

Sometimes it looks like two people sitting in silence, writing on the same page.

Sometimes it looks like someone saying “Try again” when you’ve already given up.

I uploaded it at 1:02 AM.

When I woke up, my phone had 14 notifications.

Reads: 204.

Comments: 11.

`This made me cry at work. Thank you.`

`The line about the light... I needed that.`

`-N: You made me believe in pages again.`

Neil had commented.

In the evening, a message came from an unknown number.

`It’s Neil. Same place next Saturday? 10:17?`

I stared at it for a full minute before replying.

`Yes. I’ll bring two notebooks.`

He replied instantly.

`Good. I have a lot to say.`

I put my phone down and looked at the blank page in front of me.

For the first time in a long time, it didn’t scare me.

Because now I knew.

Happy endings weren’t written alone.

They were written together.

One word. One line. One Saturday at a time.

*The End of Episode 6*

TO BE CONTINUED.