But I am a reader.
I have been a reader since before I could properly hold a book, since the days when my mother would prop picture books against pillows and let me study the pages while she folded laundry. Reading is the one constant that survived everyupheaval of my life. Every new shelter, every new housing arrangement, every period of instability and uncertainty. Books do not abandon you. Stories do not judge you. Words on a page are the most reliable companions a person can have.
And this cover is calling to me with a voice I cannot ignore.
I pick up the journal.
The weight of it is satisfying in my hands, the kind of heft that promises substance. I flip it open, and the first page confirms what the cover suggested.
This is a story.
Handwritten in neat, slanted script that is clearly Etienne's, the pages are filled with prose. Paragraphs that flow into each other with the rhythm of someone who has been practicing their craft, sentences that are constructed with care, dialogue that is punctuated properly and indented correctly. This is not a random collection of thoughts. This is a novel in progress, drafted by hand in a journal that lives on Etienne Laurent's nightstand.
I begin reading.
The story opens with the girl on the ice. Molly, her name is, a figure skater who has spent her entire life chasing a dream that is slowly slipping away from her. She is talented but injured, passionate but exhausted, caught between the expectations of the world that created her and the quiet voice inside that keeps asking whether this is really what she wants.
Charlos is introduced in the third chapter. A scholar. A writer. A young man whose family expects him to follow in the footsteps of an older brother who has achieved everything Charlos secretly despises. He hides in libraries because libraries are the only spaces where no one asks him to be anything other than himself. He watches the world through glasses that are slightly too large for his face, and he writes stories in journals that no one will ever read because admitting he wants to bea writer feels like admitting he has failed at being the son his father wanted.
They meet by accident.
Molly, escaping the rink after a disastrous practice, finds herself in the university library seeking a quiet place to cry. Charlos, hiding in the stacks with his notebook, stumbles upon her and offers a handkerchief without saying a word. They sit in silence for an hour, two strangers sharing space without demanding anything from each other, and when Molly finally leaves, she realizes she forgot to return the handkerchief.
She comes back the next day to return it.
And the next.
And the next.
I am lost.
The world outside the pages ceases to exist. The warmth of the room, the sleeping Alpha behind me, the ache in my knee, the chaos of the day that preceded this moment. All of it fades into static while I turn page after page, devouring the story that Etienne Laurent has been secretly writing in the privacy of his room.
Molly and Charlos fall in love the way people fall in love in the best stories. Slowly. Inevitably. Through stolen glances and accidental touches and conversations that stretch into hours without either of them noticing the passage of time. Through the gradual revelation of secrets and the careful building of trust. Through the pain of watching someone you care about struggle with demons you cannot fight for them.
Charlos's brother is a problem.
An older brother who casts a shadow so long that Charlos cannot remember what his own light looks like. A brother who mocks his writing, dismisses his dreams, tells him that real men do not waste time on stories when there are legacies to build and expectations to meet. Every interaction between them drips witha toxicity that I recognize in my bones, the slow poison of being compared to someone else and always found lacking.
Molly sees him.
She sees the real Charlos, the one who hides beneath the glasses and the books and the carefully constructed persona of the dutiful son. She reads his stories when he finally trusts her enough to share them, and her reaction is not polite encouragement or tolerant support. It is genuine, visceral appreciation. She tells him his words made her cry. Made her laugh. Made her feel things she did not know she was still capable of feeling.
And Charlos, for the first time in his life, wonders if maybe he is not as worthless as his brother's voice in his head keeps insisting.
I turn another page.
I am two-thirds through the journal now, my fingers moving automatically, my eyes scanning the words with the speed of someone who has forgotten how to read slowly. Tears are forming in my eyes, blurring the text, and I have to blink them away to keep the lines from swimming.
This is beautiful. This is achingly, heartbreakingly, devastatingly beautiful. The way he writes Molly, the way he captures her strength and her fragility and the exhausted determination that keeps her moving even when her body begs her to stop. The way he writes Charlos, the way he shows the internal war between duty and desire without ever making it feel melodramatic or overwrought.
This is the work of someone who understands loneliness. Who knows what it feels like to have dreams that the world tells you are not worth pursuing. Who has spent nights staring at ceilings wondering if they will ever find someone who sees them, really sees them, and does not look away.
I turn the page.
Blank.
I frown, flipping to the next page.
