Chapter 12
207words
Later I understood—love needs an echo to fade away.
Now, finally, I heard it.
I carried the notebook to Leo, still deep in his conference call. One look at my tear-streaked face and he immediately said, "I need ten minutes," to whoever was on the line before pulling off his headphones.
"What's wrong?" He grabbed my hand, concern etched across his face.
Without a word, I opened the notebook and handed it to him.
His eyes fell on the familiar handwriting, and his entire body went rigid. A flush crept up from his neck to his ears. He looked like a man whose decade-old secret had suddenly been exposed—embarrassed, vulnerable, at a complete loss for words.
I rose on tiptoe and whispered in his ear:
"Leo Sanders."
"Hmm?"
"You were really noisy."
Noisy enough to reach that teenage girl waiting alone at the school gate,
Noisy enough to reach that twenty-year-old sitting in an empty restaurant as her birthday candles melted away,
Noisy enough to reach the woman who spent countless nights wondering why she wasn't enough,
And finally, as my twenties drew to a close, I heard your magnificent echo—ten years late, but right on time.
