When love lies

Chapter 1 – The Beginning of Everything

Josephine’s POV

The summer sun cast golden streaks across the campus lawn, painting the world in a soft, almost dreamlike hue. Everything felt suspended in warmth except my heart.

I remember that day like it was sealed in my skin.

Kenneth was standing across the courtyard, a book tucked beneath his arm, his white button down sleeves rolled up just enough to show the curve of his forearms. He wasn’t doing anything special just laughing with his friends but something about him. it reached through my ribs and pulled.

I had seen him around campus before third year political science, one of those guys every girl whispered about but none could really figure out. The ones with wounds in their eyes and fire in their smiles. The kind that stayed with you in your sleep.

But that day was different. That day, he looked at me.

And I looked back.

He approached me like the world had slowed down for this moment, like we were being choreographed by something bigger. I still remember his voice! low, smooth, playful.

“You always this serious looking? Or do I have to earn a smile?”

I blinked. “I smile when something’s worth smiling about.”

His laugh was quiet, deep, like it had roots in some old soul he didn’t show to everyone. “Challenge accepted.”

That was the beginning.

One conversation became three. A missed lecture turned into coffee, then late night phone calls, then long walks around campus under skies stitched with stars. He told me things no one else knew. About his strict father. About how he was expected to be someone he wasn’t. About how tired he was of pretending.

I told him I didn’t want to be anyone’s escape. I wanted to be chosen.

He whispered, “Then I choose you. Every version of you. Every flaw. Every fear.”

We became inseparable.

Our first kiss was under the rain, not the gentle kind that drizzles no, it was the heavy, all consuming kind. The kind that baptized you into something new. I laughed as I slipped in the mud. He caught me. And kissed me. Slow. Intense. Final. Like he had been holding his breath until that moment.

And in that kiss, I felt it how dangerous love could be when it felt that good.

By the third month, we’d made a promise. No matter what life threw at us, we’d fight for each other. He gave me a ring his mother’s, silver and small. It was a secret between us, hidden beneath the sleeve of my blouse.

That night, we went too far or maybe we went just far enough.

I gave him everything, my virginity. Not because he asked, but because I wanted to. Because it felt right. Sacred. I remember the way his fingers trembled, how gentle he was, how he asked, “Are you sure?” more times than I could count.

“I’ve never been more sure,” I whispered.

Afterward, we lay tangled in each other, skin against skin, heart against heart. And then.. we did something stupid. Beautiful. Binding.

We made a blood covenant.

A small cut on the finger. A drop exchanged. A vow sealed.

“I swear I’ll never leave you,” he said, forehead pressed to mine. “Not in this life. Not in any other.”

I swore it too.

But words are fragile things.

Two weeks later, his father found out. About us. About me. About the future Kenneth had dared to imagine that didn’t involve politics, privilege, or a wife chosen at some black-tie dinner.

Everything changed.

He stopped answering my calls. Stopped showing up to class. I waited on the courtyard bench every day for a week, praying he’d come. Believing he would.

On the eighth day, I saw him again but not alone.

He was with her. Tall. Beautiful. Dressed like money. Holding his arm like she belonged there.

He didn’t look at me.

That night, I took off the silver ring and screamed into my pillow until my voice broke.

And then, as if life couldn’t be crueler… I found out I was pregnant.

Alone. Twenty two . In a world that no longer made sense.

I packed my things. Left the city. Changed my name. Erased every trace of who I was with him. But I couldn’t erase what we made.

I gave birth to a boy with Kenneth’s eyes.

And every day I looked into those eyes, I remembered the boy who once swore he’d never leave and did.

End of chapter 1 .

Chapter 2 – The Silence Between Us

Kenneth’s POV

There are things you carry quietly. Regrets so heavy they become a second skeleton.

Josephine was mine.

After my father gave me the ultimatum, I stopped breathing. Not literally but my soul, my will, my desire to fight? Gone.

He stood in his study, glass of whiskey in one hand, family name in the other. “You will end this childish affair,” he said, as if she were a mistake. “You’ll marry Eleanor Pierce. That’s final.”

I tried to argue. God knows I tried.

“I love her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think love pays for legacy?”

That night, I punched a wall so hard I cracked my knuckles. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. I typed out a message to Josephine, backspaced. Typed again. Deleted. Over and over. Nothing I wrote felt like enough. Or maybe, deep down, I knew there was no right way to say, I’m leaving, but I never wanted to.

Then came the hardest thing I’ve ever done; I walked away.

I walked into a life I didn’t choose, wearing a tuxedo I hated, beside a woman I couldn’t love.

Eleanor was kind. Smart. Classy. She didn’t deserve half a man, but that’s all I was. I tried to be good to her. I smiled in public. Played the part. But every time she touched me, I flinched. Not out of disgust but because it reminded me of what I lost.

Josephine had fire in her soul. Eleanor had frost.

Still, I kept my word to my father. For twelve long years.

No children. No passion. No peace.

Some nights, I’d wake up drenched in sweat, calling Josephine’s name. I’d see her in dreams laughing in the rain, lips red, eyes soft. I’d feel her fingers trace my chest, hear her whisper, You promised. Then I’d wake up beside a stranger.

Eleanor noticed. Of course, she did.

She tried to reach me. God, she tried. Fancy dinners, long vacations, “let’s try again” talks. But love can’t be forced. Chemistry doesn’t negotiate.

One night, she stood by the fireplace, arms wrapped around herself like she was freezing from the inside.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’ve waited for you to love me. I’ve waited for a child. I’ve waited for laughter. I’m tired of waiting, Kenneth.”

I didn’t say a word. What could I say? I failed her. I failed Josephine. I failed myself.

She filed for divorce the next day.

Seven years passed.

I aged, but not gracefully. My body slowed, my spirit crumbled. The doctors called it “cardiomyopathy”fancy word for a dying heart. I took the pills. Traveled for treatment. But nothing fixed what was truly broken.

Hope.

Then… he walked into my life.

His name was Noah.

Bright, funny, full of quick wit and quiet depth. There was something in his smile that felt familiar. Something in his laugh that cracked open a part of me I had buried long ago.

He was interviewing for a corporate research project I was funding! fresh graduate brilliant brain. I liked him instantly.

I offered him a job. Invited him to live in the guest house. He reminded me of a version of myself before the world crushed me. We’d talk late into the night, sipping bourbon by the fireplace, like two men trying to understand life before it ended.

One night, after a few too many drinks, I asked him, “You ever been in love?”

He smiled like he’d seen a ghost. “I think I have.”

I laughed. “Good. Don’t lose it. Ever. I lost mine. And I’ve never recovered.”

He leaned closer, genuinely curious. “What happened?”

I stared into the fire.

“She was. everything. Wild and soft. Brave and complicated. We made vows, blood ones.” My voice cracked. “I let her go because I was a coward in a world built on control. But I never stopped dreaming about her. Every damn night. I see her eyes.”

Noah didn’t say anything. But I saw something shift in his expression. Like he knew her. Like some invisible chord had just been plucked.

But I brushed it off. What were the odds?

He left a few months later. A new job, better pay. We hugged goodbye. I wanted to tell him he was the son I never had.

Funny how life laughs at you.

End of chapter 2

Chapter 3 – The Child I Raised Alone

Josephine’s POV

Some women forget. I never could.

The night Kenneth left, I bled in more ways than one. I bled love, and I bled life. He didn’t know, and I didn’t tell him. How could I? His silence after our last kiss spoke louder than any vow he ever made.

I remember standing by the train station, one hand resting on my belly, the other clutching my coat closed. Wind biting, heart breaking. I’d found out I was pregnant just days before. I waited for him to call, to say he was sorry, to come get me. He didn’t. Instead, the tabloids did what he couldn’t, they told me he got married.

And so, I vanished.

I moved to Savannah, Georgia-a small town with kind people and enough peace to let grief grow roots. I got a job as a librarian, used the last of my savings to rent a modest apartment, and six months later, gave birth to the most beautiful boy I had ever seen.

I named him Noah.

No middle name. Just Noah. Pure and whole.

Raising him alone was the hardest and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Every time he smiled, I saw Kenneth. Every time he argued, questioned, challenged me , I saw Kenneth’s fire. His stubborn charm. His infuriating warmth.

I never told Noah about his father.

He grew up thinking his dad had died before he was born. I kept the lie tidy, out of protection. Out of pride. Out of pain. What could I tell a boy about a man who broke my heart and never came looking!

Still, I kept Kenneth’s letters in a box under my bed. The love notes, the sketches he made of our future house, the blood pact we made when we were 19. We had cut our fingers open and whispered promises into the night. “Forever, even in silence.”

I remember our first night together, the way he trembled when he touched me, how he made love to me like he was discovering religion for the first time. He kissed every part of me like I was made of prayers. When it was over, he pressed his forehead to mine and said, “I will never let anything take you from me.”

Funny how the world makes liars of lovers.

Noah didn’t ask about his father much. And when he did, I’d give vague answers. “He was strong,” I’d say. “Smart. A man of big dreams.” All of which were true, even if the truth itself was a lie.

When Noah graduated college, I cried harder than I had in years. He got a job in New York big lights, big stage, big world. I packed his bags and kissed his forehead. “Call me every Sunday,” I said, fighting tears. He hugged me so tightly that I almost broke and told him everything.

But I didn’t.

Months passed.

Then one Sunday, his voice sounded different. “Mom… I met someone. Well, not like that. A man. Older. He hired me. We talk a lot.”

“Oh?”

“He told me about a woman he once loved. Your name came up.”

My breath stopped.

I tried to play it off. “Lots of Josephines in the world.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, but… something about the way he talks about her. Like she was the one thing that kept him alive even after he lost her. He said he dreams of her still.”

That night, I didn’t sleep.

I pulled out the box under my bed and reread every letter. My name in his handwriting. My picture drawn in his style. The vows we made under that oak tree.

And I knew.

It had to be Kenneth.

He was alive. Still breathing. Still dreaming. Still holding on to a version of me I had buried.

My knees hit the floor, and for the first time in years, I wept for him. Not in anger. But in mourning for the time we lost. For the love we left unfinished. For the truth I never told our son.

Two weeks later, Noah called.

“Mom… can you visit next weekend?”

I said yes.

And I packed not just a bag but the truth.

End of chapter 3

Chapter 4 – The Reunion

Kenneth’s POV

I wasn’t expecting a guest that evening. I had barely gotten used to Noah’s absence after he moved back home for a new job opportunity. The apartment felt colder without his laughter echoing through the hallways. But I understood he was chasing a future, and I was… well, just watching mine slip through the cracks.

The cancer had made time irrelevant. I took pills. I drank water. I waited.

That night, I was staring out the window with a glass of wine, thinking about her again Josephine. God, how she never left me. I had loved my wife, Elena, in the way you care for someone out of duty. But never with the kind of passion I had for Josephine.

Not with that kind of wildfire.

I was remembering her laugh soft, like rain on a windowpane when the doorbell rang.

I took my time getting there. No one visits an old man without warning unless it’s bad news or God.

But when I opened the door… I forgot how to breathe.

There she was.

Josephine.

Not a ghost. Not a memory. Not a dream.

Her hair was longer now, streaked with soft silver strands. Her face had matured, but her eyes those deep brown oceans had not changed. Not one bit. My hands trembled on the doorknob.

I said her name like a question. “Josephine?”

She nodded, eyes already full of tears. “Hello, Kenneth.”

The ground beneath my feet dissolved. My heart kicked in a way the doctors warned it shouldn’t. I stepped back, inviting her in. The scent of lavender followed her like a memory too long buried.

“How

how did you…?”

“Noah,” she whispered.

I froze.

“Your… Noah?”

She smiled softly. “Our Noah.”

And just like that twenty four years of silence crumbled.

We sat for hours, no words at first. Just looking.

Then the words began pouring out like rain breaking through a dam. She told me everything how she found out she was pregnant, how she waited for me to come, how she ran when I never did.

I confessed too how my father arranged my marriage to Elena when I hesitated, how I tried to fight but gave in, too weak, too afraid to disobey.

“How could I tell our child,” Josephine whispered, “that his father chose another life?”

“I didn’t choose,” I said bitterly. “I surrendered.”

She nodded. “And yet. you kept me alive. In dreams.”

I reached for her hand. It was still warm. Still soft. “I thought I’d go to my grave with your name in my mouth.”

She smiled, and it wrecked me.

Then she said, “He doesn’t know.”

I blinked. “Who doesn’t?”

“Noah. He doesn’t know you’re his father. And you don’t know you’ve been drinking with your own son.”

The floor tilted beneath me.

I gasped, stood up too quickly. The room spun. My heart roared in my chest. “He… he’s my son?”

She stood with me, nodded, her tears spilling freely now. “Yes.”

I covered my mouth. My legs gave way. I sank to the couch.

Our son. My boy. The one I laughed with. The one I saw myself in every day. All this time.

I had loved him deeply without knowing why. And now I knew. Flesh of my flesh.

“My God,” I whispered. “I have a son.”

She knelt beside me, took my face in her hands. “You have a second chance, Kenneth. You don’t have to die with regret.”

I kissed her forehead and wept. We both did.

The past hadn’t been kind to us.

But the present? The present had finally given us truth.

End of chapter 4

Chapter 5 – Father and Son

Noah’s POV

Moving back in with Mom after getting the publishing job in Manhattan was supposed to be temporary. A month, tops. But I missed Kenneth. That old man had a strange charm quiet, observant, and almost… broken in a way that made you want to fix him.

We had bonded over late night conversations and wine. He called me “kid” like I was his own. Sometimes, he’d get emotional, speaking about a woman he lost long ago. Josephine, he said. His only real love. The way he spoke about her… I’d never seen love like that outside of movies.

I envied it.

But the week before my mother visited him, she had been distant. Nervous. Then one day, she said she wanted to visit someone. She never said who.

The next time I saw Kenneth, everything had changed.

He called and asked if we could meet. Just the two of us. His voice had cracked through the phone like he had aged another decade overnight.

I found him sitting outside his apartment. He looked at me for a long time before saying, “I need to tell you something, Noah.”

“Sure,” I said, sitting beside him. “You okay?”

He didn’t answer right away. He just handed me an old photo. It was of him and a young woman.

My mother.

My heart stopped.

“That’s… that’s my mom.”

He nodded. “I know. And you’re my son.”

I stared at him.

Laughed nervously. “Funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

My throat went dry. “What. what do you mean?”

“I loved her,” he said, tears already forming. “I was forced into a marriage I never wanted. I was a coward, Noah. I didn’t know she was pregnant. I never stopped loving her. And I never knew. never suspected. that you were mine.”

The silence was so heavy I could hear my heartbeat.

Then it all made sense.

The connection. The pull. The warmth I always felt around him.

I stood up. Paced. Swore under my breath. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She was protecting you. And herself. And maybe even me.”

I turned away. My head spun. I didn’t know whether to scream or hug him.

Finally, I looked back at him. “So. I’m your son.”

He nodded. “And I’m the proudest father in the world.”

I exhaled. And for some reason, I didn’t feel angry anymore. I just felt whole.

“I’ve always felt like something was missing,” I said. “Now I know what it was.”

He reached out. I let him pull me in.

And for the first time, we hugged like father and son.

Kenneth’s POV

Those weeks that followed were the best of my life.

We spent time together real time. Fishing. Playing chess. Cooking badly. Laughing hard.

Josephine visited every weekend. We talked about the past, but we didn’t drown in it. We simply lived.

At night, I’d watch them from the living room window mother and son laughing like life had never broken them. And I’d feel peace.

But the body always remembers.

The cancer came back stronger.

One night I collapsed in the kitchen. Josephine found me unconscious, rushed me to the hospital.

I fought.

God, I fought.

Because for the first time in decades, I had something to live for.

A son.

A woman I never stopped loving.

A reason to wake up.

End of chapter 5

Chapter 6 – The Slow Goodbye

Josephine’s POV

The scent of antiseptic and quiet despair filled the hospital room. I sat at the edge of Kenneth’s bed, holding his frail hand in both of mine, tracing the veins like they were old roads we had once walked together.

He was asleep, drugged, but peaceful. His chest rose and fell like a whisper.

Every time I looked at him now, I saw the boy I once loved. The man I still did.

And the father he never got to be.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry in front of him. But grief doesn’t always ask for permission.

The nurse had said, “We’re doing everything we can.”

Translation: Prepare yourself.

Kenneth stirred, eyelids fluttering. His lips moved. I leaned closer.

“Jo,” he whispered, voice gravelly. “You stayed.”

“Always,” I said softly, brushing the strands of gray from his forehead. “You gave me no choice.”

A faint smile tugged at his lips. “I still see you in that red dress from the night we danced by the river. Remember?”

I laughed through tears. “You said I looked like trouble.”

“You were,” he croaked. “But the kind a man wants to chase forever.”

He closed his eyes again. Exhausted.

Noah walked in with two coffees and stopped short when he saw the way Kenneth clung to my hand.

I could see it in his eyes the boy who had finally found his father, and now watched time try to take him away again.

Noah walked over, set one coffee on the side table, and sat on the other side of the bed.

“Hey, old man,” he said gently. “You hanging in there?”

Kenneth cracked one eye open and gave a weak grin. “Not ready to go just yet, kid.”

Noah chuckled and blinked fast. “Good. ’Cause I was thinking we could finally watch that dumb black-and-white movie you’re always raving about.”

Kenneth reached out a trembling hand and gripped his son’s wrist.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, voice shaking. “You’re everything I hoped a son would be. Strong. Kind. Smarter than me.”

“You’re not dying,” Noah muttered.

But we both knew he was.

Kenneth’s POV

I dreamed of the river again that night.

Josephine’s laugh echoed across the water like a song the wind never forgot. She wore white this time, not red. She reached for me, but my hands wouldn’t move.

Then a voice whispered: “Let go.”

When I opened my eyes, Josephine and Noah were asleep, heads leaning against each other on the visitor’s couch.

The world was quiet.

And I felt… ready.

I reached for the notepad on my bedside table and began to write with trembling fingers.

To my son,

You were the miracle I didn’t know I’d been given. Thank you for forgiving me for giving me a second chance to love, to live. Carry my name with pride, but more importantly, carry your own with honor. Build the life I was too scared to chase.

To Josephine,

You were always the love of my life. You were my compass, my fire, my beginning and end. I’m sorry. For the promises I broke. For the life we never got to finish. But even now, I love you. Even here, I still choose you.

I dropped the pen.

The pain in my chest came slow, then fast.

I pressed the nurse button.

But this time, I knew I wasn’t coming back.

Josephine’s POV

They called at 3:47 a.m.

I didn’t scream.

I just stood there in the hospital corridor, my son holding my hand, and I let the tears fall. Quiet. Endless.

We went in together.

Kenneth looked. peaceful. His lips curved in a soft smile, like he’d just seen something beautiful before letting go.

Noah reached out and laid a hand on his father’s chest.

“Goodbye, Dad,” he whispered.

And I broke.

End of chapter 6

Chapter 7 – The Funeral & The Flower

Josephine’s POV

The sky mourned with us.

Gray clouds hovered like grief that refused to lift, and the wind carried whispers of things unsaid memories we could never relive, choices we couldn’t undo.

Kenneth’s casket was simple. Elegant. Just like him.

Noah stood beside me in a black suit, his jaw clenched as he stared straight ahead, eyes glassy but proud. The priest’s voice was soft and ceremonial, speaking of peace, of passing, of eternal rest but I couldn’t focus. My mind played a different liturgy. One made of laughter, of stolen kisses, of bare feet and riverbanks and promises spoken under stars.

Every moment I had buried for twenty-four years had resurfaced.

Kenneth was gone.

Again.

This time, for good.

I tightened my grip on the single white rose in my hand. It trembled—no, I trembled—as the priest said his final words.

“We commend his soul…”

I thought about the boy who danced with me barefoot in the rain. The man who held me like I was his whole world. The father who never got the chance to raise his son.

And then… I stepped forward.

Josephine’s POV (continued)

My heels sank slightly into the grass as I approached the casket. Everything around me blurred—people, trees, sky. All I could see was Kenneth.

Lying still.

Cold.

Gone.

I leaned down, pressing my lips to the wood gently.

“I loved you then,” I whispered, voice cracking. “And I still love you now.”

I placed the white rose over the casket. My fingers lingered as if they could pull him back from the silence.

A sob escaped me. I didn’t try to hide it.

Behind me, others wept. Friends. Former colleagues. People whose lives he’d touched in quiet, unassuming ways. But they hadn’t seen him the way I did. They hadn’t known his tenderness… or his torment.

Noah stepped forward, standing tall. With tears in his eyes and a paper in his hand, he began to read:

“I didn’t grow up with my father. I didn’t even know him until months ago. But in that short time… he taught me how to live. Not perfectly. Not painlessly. But fully. He showed me that it’s never too late to love, to forgive, or to be found.

I’m proud to be his son. And I’ll carry his name with honor.”

There was a moment of silence after Noah’s voice faltered. And then… gentle applause.

Mournful. Respectful.

Later that Day – Josephine’s POV

The house felt emptier than I expected.

Kenneth’s scent still lingered faintly in the hallway. A mix of cedarwood, old books, and whatever cologne he used that always made me weak in the knees.

I wandered into his study.

Photos were scattered of him and Noah, smiling. Laughing. Bonding like they’d never lost time.

And then I saw it.

A sealed envelope with my name in his handwriting.

With trembling hands, I opened it.

“Jo,

I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I know that. But if love means anything, it means I never stopped carrying you inside me even when I walked away.

Thank you for giving me a son. For giving me a second chance to be more than the scared boy I was.

If love could rewrite time, I’d find you sooner.

And I’d never let go.”

– K.

I folded the letter gently and pressed it to my heart.

He was gone.

But somehow he had come home.

End of chapter 7

Chapter 8 – After the Storm

Noah’s POV

The funeral was over, but something in me had only just begun.

I stood in Kenneth’s study again my father’s study and stared at the leather chair he always occupied. It still held the imprint of him. The worn out arms, the soft headrest where he used to lean back and ask, “Do you believe in love, Noah?”

I never knew how to answer him then. Not because I didn’t believe, but because I had never seen love like that up close. At least, not until I watched him talk about my mother.

He never knew she was mine. And I never knew he was my father. Yet somehow… love found a way to reveal itself, even in ignorance.

Josephine’s POV

The silence of Kenneth’s home was the loudest sound I had ever heard.

Noah was packing up his things. The job that had brought him to the city was calling again, but I could tell he didn’t want to leave. Not now. Not yet.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, his voice low as he zipped up his duffel bag. “We’ll sort through his things together.”

I nodded, my throat thick.

Then I saw him hold Kenneth’s old record player the same one that played when we danced under candlelight in our youth. He smiled at it.

“He used to tell me music could remember things even when we forget.”

I touched his arm.

“He was right.”

Later that Night

I found the photo again.

The one Kenneth had tucked into the back of a drawer. It was of me barefoot, wild haired, holding a rose in my teeth and laughing as he snapped the shot.

He’d kept it all these years.

Even when he married another.

Even when we disappeared.

The tears didn’t come this time. Only gratitude. For the love we had. For the son we made. For the final chapter that gave us peace.

Noah’s POV (One Week Later)

Back in my apartment, I looked out over the city bright lights, cold steel, fast everything. But my heart stayed soft.

He left me everything.

In his will, he gave me not just the house, but his books, his journals, his dreams.

But more than that, he gave me identity.

I wasn’t just Noah anymore.

I was Noah Bennett.

Son of a man who taught me too late but beautifully what it means to love fully and live honestly.

And now… I would live in a way that honored him.

End of chapter 8

Chapter 9 – The Letters He Left Behind

Josephine’s POV

I hadn’t planned to open the old chest in the corner of Kenneth’s bedroom. But something pulled me to!it a whisper from the past, or maybe the ache in my heart that refused to settle.

The key was already in the lock.

I turned it.

Inside were letters. Dozens of them. All in Kenneth’s handwriting. Some sealed, some yellowed with time. Some addressed to “J,” others simply marked with dates. One stood out folded, not sealed, and slightly torn at the corner.

I opened it.

*“My dearest J,

If I could go back, I would choose you every single time.

I see your face in the morning light, hear your laughter in the silence.

They told me it was wrong. That we were wrong. But how can something so true be a mistake?

I should’ve run after you. I should’ve fought harder. I should’ve been the man you needed me to be.

I write these now because I never stopped loving you.

Yours, even when I’m gone,

Kenneth.”*

I couldn’t hold the tears back this time. They came like the tide steady, unrelenting. The love we lost wasn’t just memory. It lived here, in ink. In confession. In regret.

And somehow, in redemption.

Noah’s POV

The box was waiting on my doorstep when I returned home. No return address. Just my name.

Inside were books. His books. Marked with underlines, notes in the margins, paperclips on pages he once quoted aloud.

At the bottom was a sealed envelope addressed to me.

*“To my son, Noah

If you’re reading this, it means the time I feared has come.

But don’t mourn me with sadness. Mourn me with music. With wine. With laughter.

I hope I taught you something. I hope I gave you a piece of your identity, something real to carry forward.

I was a man full of mistakes, but you,you are the grace I didn’t deserve.

Live loud. Love harder. Be better than I ever was.

And when you think of me, think of that night on the porch, when we drank under the stars and talked about love.

That was my favorite night.”*

I read it three times.

Each time, I loved him more.

Josephine’s POV

I began writing again.

Pages filled with our story the real one. The version no one else knew. Not the pain. Not the bitterness. But the moments that mattered. The stolen kisses. The late-night laughter. The promise sealed in blood. The child that became a bridge.

I wasn’t writing for the world.

I was writing for Noah.

So he’d know how loved he truly was

by both of us.

Noah stood at Kenneth’s grave weeks later, letter in hand, wind brushing his face like a blessing.

He knelt.

He smiled.

He whispered, “I believe in love now.”

And for the first time in his life, he truly meant it.

End of chapter 9

Chapter 10 – Ghosts in the Wind

Josephine’s POV

The house still smells like him. A soft blend of aged books, peppermint tea, and his cologne.

Sometimes I catch myself calling out his name expecting him to answer from the next room.

He doesn’t.

I sat in the living room tonight with the light off, just listening to the wind.

And for the first time since his passing, I smiled.

Not because I was healed.

But because I remembered us—before the lies, before the heartbreak, before life pulled us apart.

I remembered the man who whispered my name like a promise.

Noah’s POV

I had the dream again.

We were on the porch.

Him. Me. Two glasses of scotch. One truth between us.

He was telling me about a woman—how her laugh could stop time, how her eyes silenced his doubts. He didn’t know he was talking about my mother.

In the dream, I asked him, “Why didn’t you fight for her?”

And he answered, “Because I was a boy trapped in a man’s world. And boys don’t know how to fight for forever.”

When I woke up, the wind was howling through my apartment window.

It sounded like grief.

Or maybe forgiveness.

Josephine visited his grave at dusk.

She brought tulips his favorite.

And this time, she didn’t cry.

She spoke gently to his grave

She said “and if life ever happens for us again “

Fight, fight for what you want, fight for the people you cherish, fight with your whole strength.

You were such an amazing man and the little time life gave us chance , you gave me life. Poor orphan that had no family, you gave me hope , you redeemed me and I felt home was you. Even in your grave I will forever love you…

She whispered, “Thank you for loving me, even when love lied.”

She placed a small notebook at the base of the headstone.

Inside were pages of her,her pain, her joy, their memories.

A legacy.

A goodbye.

A start.

As she walked away, the wind picked up again.

And somewhere, in the silence between her footsteps, she swore she heard him say her name.

Soft.

Warm.

Home.

End of chapter 10

End of when love lies.