Epilogue: The Words That Remained
The stage was smaller than Amelia remembered.
Not physically — that had changed long ago, when bricks were replaced and curtains redone. But in memory, everything felt larger. Brighter. Louder.
And quieter.
The theater wasn't packed. Just a modest gathering of students, teachers, and town locals who'd heard of the girl with the bright smile who had died on this very floor, mid-performance, ten years ago.
The girl who, they said, had been smiling when she fell.
A girl — not Amelia — stood behind the curtain now. She was seventeen. Dark curls tucked behind her ears. Nervous fingers clutching the script of a play she didn't write. A play no one wrote, really. Just something pulled from the pages of two diaries discovered in a forgotten corner of the school library five years ago.
She hadn't known David. Or Amelia. But she knew them now. Word by word. Scene by scene. Letter by letter.
She stepped onto the stage, into the light.
A single spotlight.
She took a breath.
> "You were lightning behind the clouds," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "Quiet, but inevitable."
The audience leaned in.
> "You once told me I looked like sunlight. But you… you were time. Always running out. Always worth chasing."
She flipped a page.
> "I built a life around your memory. Not out of grief. Out of gratitude. If love is remembering someone the way they wanted to be seen… then I loved you. Every second. Even the ones I wasted."
The lights dimmed to a soft, aching blue. Like the sky after a storm.
> "You died loving me," she whispered, "and I lived trying to deserve it."
She stepped forward, reading from Amelia's final letter.
> "If this is my final scene, know that I left smiling. You were worth it. Every line. Every page."
Silence.
No applause. Not yet.
Just the weight of two lives, pressing into the air.
She closed the script.
> "You were the best thing that ever happened to me," she said, tears slipping down her cheeks, though she wasn't acting anymore. "I just wish we'd had more time. But if I had to trade time for you… I'd still make the same choice."
She bowed.
Then stepped back.
The lights faded.
And for a moment, there was nothing but the sound of breathing.
Then, applause.
Not thunderous. Not explosive.
Just… real.
Soft. Grateful.
Like saying goodbye without breaking.
Backstage, the girl sat in the dressing room. The two diaries were beside her — one labeled For Amelia, the other For David. She opened them every time before a performance. Not to memorize. Just to remember.
A line from David's diary still haunted her the most.
> "There's a version of me that confesses everything. That tells you the truth. That watches you cry and lets himself be held."
She had written those words into the play exactly as he wrote them. As if, even now, his voice could be heard.
She tucked both diaries back into her bag, carefully wrapped in velvet cloth.
They were going home with her again tonight.
They always did.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Not Amelia's. Not David's.
Hers.
But her smile — the way it lingered on her lips, sad and soft and steady — that wasn't just hers.
It was borrowed.
Gifted.
Inherited from a boy who died for love and a girl who died smiling.
And maybe, in that small, quiet smile, their story would never really end.
It would echo.
It would survive.
And somewhere, in every person who heard it…
It would live again.