The ballroom was a blur of motion, but Ella stood still, heart thudding in her chest, clutching the final note. The masked stranger's presence lingered in the air — in the warmth of her skin where his hand had touched, in the soft press of his voice echoing in her ears.
She had danced with her secret admirer. And now he was gone again.
Back in her dorm, she unfolded the note under her desk lamp, the shadows of the chandelier still dancing in her mind.
"If you felt even a flicker tonight… keep reading. The truth is coming. I promise."
There was something handwritten on the back. A single line.
"You once told a stranger that poems are the safest way to bleed. I remembered that."
Ella's breath caught.
She had said that. Months ago, in a late-night comment thread on a little-known poetry blog she sometimes posted in anonymously. She'd believed no one had noticed. But someone had. Someone who remembered every word she let fall in the dark.
Who was he?
She opened her laptop and scrolled through the blog's archives, tracing her own footprints in the dust of forgotten entries. There — a post titled "Confessions to No One." A comment from a user named "VigilQuill" had replied to her anonymously.
"And yet, even the blood in your words sings."
It was him. It had to be.
She clicked the username, hoping for a profile. Nothing. No links, no clues. He was a ghost of the internet, as elusive online as in person.
The next morning, Ella walked the university halls with sharper eyes. Every footstep, every glance — she tried to measure them against the voice in the letters. She watched the way people moved, who lingered near the English department, who smiled too slowly when she passed.
Nathan was too obvious. James, the quiet philosophy student, maybe. Theo from the poetry circle? He had a kind way of speaking, but lacked the soul in the letters.
She couldn't pin it down.
By the time her next class began — Romantic Literature — she was tired of overthinking. Professor Blackwell droned about Keats and Shelley while she half-listened, fingers idly sketching roses in the margin of her notebook.
Then she noticed something.
Next to her book, tucked just barely beneath the cover, was a folded paper. Her pulse quickened. Another letter.
She slid it into her lap and unfolded it discreetly.
"You looked beautiful last night. I almost told you everything. But I wanted you to know my heart before you knew my name."
"I've hidden pieces of myself where I knew you'd find them. Read the margins. Read your own words. I've been writing back to you for longer than you realize."
— Yours, always.
Ella nearly gasped.
Her own notebook.
She flipped through it, stunned to see faint writing scrawled in the margins — answers, reactions, notes beside her poems. How long had they been there?
One read:
"You fear being too much — but you are exactly enough."
Another beside a melancholic stanza:
"If only you knew how many times I've wanted to hold that sadness for you."
It was like reading a conversation across time. A hidden thread between her and him, woven through her own vulnerability.
Ava squealed when Ella told her everything later that night.
"You danced with him. He's been writing in your notebook! This is like a literal romance novel."
"I feel like I'm losing my mind," Ella said, though her smile betrayed the thrill. "He could be anyone. Someone in class. Someone I walk past every day. What if I've already spoken to him?"
"Or kissed him," Ava teased.
Ella threw a pillow at her. "Shut up."
Ava grinned. "But seriously — do you want to find him? Or are you afraid of what you'll find?"
The question hung heavy in the air.
Because Ella was afraid. What if the magic shattered when she saw his face in the daylight? What if he was someone she wasn't ready to trust? What if the words — beautiful, aching, sacred — didn't match the reality?
But the fear didn't drown the desire.
The next day, she walked to the university's old greenhouse — one of her favorite quiet places — and found another note, tied to the stem of a single white lily resting on the bench.
"If you're reading this, then you chose to keep looking."
"There's something I want you to hear. Something I wrote for you a long time ago. Come to the poetry open mic Friday night. Don't look for me. Just… listen."
Ella's breath caught. She knew the event — a small, cozy gathering in the campus café where writers shared their hearts with strangers.
Her heart skipped as she folded the note. For the first time, a true lead.
She didn't know his name, but she would know his voice.
That night, she couldn't sleep. She lay in bed with the letters beside her like a stack of stolen stars, rereading them as the clock ticked past midnight.
Whoever he was, he saw her in a way no one ever had. Not the polished version she showed professors, not the reserved one her classmates knew — but the raw, aching, dreaming core of her.
He didn't just admire her. He understood her.
And maybe, just maybe…
She was beginning to feel something for him too.
To be continued…