Her POV

The vodka burns less now. That's the thing no one tells you about coping mechanisms—eventually, they stop working. You have to keep going further, chasing the original high. Love. Lust. Numbness. Anything.

I stare at my reflection in the dirty hotel mirror. My eyeliner's smudged. Lip gloss faded. Freckles dusted across my cheeks like war paint.

"You look like hell," I whisper to myself. I laugh right after. I always laugh when I want to cry.

I pull out a Sharpie from my bag and draw a little heart on the bathroom tile. It's stupid. But I've been leaving one behind every time I come here, just small enough no one else would notice.

A part of me likes the idea of him finding one someday. Wondering if I left it for him.

But I didn't.

Not really.

I leave them for me. Proof I existed in a world that tried to forget I was here.

I grab my bag and walk out of Room 93 like I didn't just leave another piece of my soul behind.

The Observer – His POV

She passed me again tonight. Still didn't see me.

She walked by in that oversized hoodie, hood up, headphones in, the bag slung carelessly over one shoulder. She looked like she was pretending to disappear.

I watched until she turned the corner and vanished into the night.

And then I did something stupid.

I pulled out my notebook and wrote this:

Letter 1 (Unsent)

You don't know me.
But I know the way your smile disappears the second you think no one's looking.

I know you only walk fast when you're leaving the hotel, never going in.
I know that bag you carry holds your survival kit.

I know you've got a sadness in your bones so heavy it makes your shoulders curve inward, like the world's been punching down on you for years.

And I want to say—I see you.
Even if he never really does.

I don't expect you to notice me.
I don't expect you to care.

But if I could, I'd offer you a place where no one lies to you.
A silence that doesn't hurt.
A kind of love that doesn't leave when the night ends.

— The Boy on the Bench

I fold the page and tuck it between the others.

Maybe one day I'll leave it for her.

Or maybe I'll write a hundred of them and never show her any.

At least it's something.

At least she exists somewhere in ink, even if I don't exist to her.