But you’re still here. Still hoping. Still believing that walls can come down and people can change and maybe—just maybe—the story has a happy ending.
I want to believe that too.
So here’s what I’m going to try: I’m going to write the true story. The one I’ve been too afraid to tell. The one where the hero is flawed and scared and doesn’t know if he deserves theheroine but loves her anyway. The one where vulnerability is the point, not the plot twist.
And if it’s terrible, at least I’ll have tried.
Thank you for giving me the courage to try.
Yours in hope (and maybe something like love),
Coastal Quill
He’s in love with his mystery woman, and he’s going to tell her.
I feel a strange pang in my chest—happiness for him, tinged with something that feels uncomfortably like jealousy. Which is absurd. I don’t even know this man. I just know his words.
But they have become important to me. This correspondence with a stranger has become one of the safest relationships I have. And the idea that it might end—that he might find his courage and his happy ending and not need these letters anymore—makes me sadder than it should.
“You should be happy for him,” I tell Austen, who’s supervising from the counter with his usual judgment. “He’s being brave. He’s choosing vulnerability over safety. That’s what we want for people, right?”
Austen yawns.
“You’re right. I’m projecting my own loneliness onto an anonymous correspondence. That’s definitely healthy.”
I pull out my stationery and write one more letter before I can overthink it.
Dear Coastal Quill,
I’m so proud of you. For choosing courage over fear. For writing the true story even when it terrifies you. For believing that maybe—just maybe—she’ll love the real you even more than the version you thought you had to be.
You asked how to tell her. I don’t have a perfect answer, but I know this: honesty is the only way forward. Even when it’s messy. Even when you don’t know how it’ll end.
Tell her the truth. All of it. Trust that she’s strong enough to hear it and wise enough to know what to do with it.
And if she can’t—if she walks away—at least you’ll know you were brave enough to try.
As for me: you’ve given me courage too. I’m going to write again. Actually write, not just think about writing. I’m going to stop letting my ex-husband’s voice in my head decide what I’m capable of.
I’m going to be brave like you.
Thank you for that.
Yours in stubborn hope and newfound courage,
Between the Lines
I seal the envelope and add it to tomorrow’s outgoing mail.
Then I sit in my quiet bookstore, surrounded by other people’s love stories, and think about the ones we write for ourselves.
The ones where the grumpy hero might actually have a heart underneath his spreadsheets.
Where the anonymous correspondent might just be brave enough to risk everything.
And the bookstore owner might save her shop and find her voice and discover that she’s been enough all along.
I don’t know how my story ends yet.
