Secret Notes

To the side of the bookcase in the spare room, slotted right down the narrow crack between shelf and wall, there are tiny folded bits of paper. If you are small enough to squeeze a finger in, or resourceful enough to fish around with a coat hanger, you can take them out. Each one contains a different message, carries a different emotion. They are there to be read, but it’s vital they are put back in place, lest they fall into the wrong hands.

The first note Sam had found when his little brother had stolen his fiddle from its case and when he found it, the bridge was cracked and there was a long scratch down the centre. His mother had waved away his compliant, explaining Aiden was only young, and after all, it wouldn’t be that expensive to replace, but she didn’t seem to understand the principle of the thing.

He had come to the spare room, because his bedroom didn’t have a lock, and attempted to hide himself away. Sulking with his back against the door, he noticed a little flicker of white stuck on the wall. Placing his eye over the gap didn’t seem to help him get a clearer view, so he stuck his hand in. Even when his hand could fit in there fully, it hurt to do so. After a few attempts he had clutched the paper and noticed it was a message of some sort.

Very simply, in childish writing, it read,

“Having a bad day. Louise made me sad. - Emily”

While he knew whoever Emily was had left this house years ago, probably fully grown and unaware of this note’s existence, he decided to write back. After all, they were both sharing a very similar emotion.

“Dear Emily,” he wrote, “I’m sorry Louise made you sad, but if it helps I am also sad. Aiden broke my fiddle. I hope we feel better soon. – Sam.”

He placed Emily’s letter back first, before sliding his own as far back as he could send it. As though an invisible hand would take it away to wherever Emily was now, and she could read it and respond.

Years later, and still, once in a while Sam found himself in the exact spot he had been the day Aiden had cracked his fiddle. There were more papers in the gap now, to his dismay, a few of them failed to make it all the way to the back wall, so it was a lot more obvious there was something back there. He had sworn to not write another note unless it was an absolute emergency to prevent overcrowding, but he was sure his current situation counted. There was a pressing issue, and only Emily’s trademark stoicism could help.

“Dear Emily,” his writing was small as he had quartered the paper to aid the overcrowding crisis. “I wish our problems were still as simple as Louise or Aiden making us sad. Today, my very best friend came to stay. He might be here for a while - I hope he is here for a while - but I have a very slight problem. I think I am in love with him. - Sam”

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bookcase belongs to: Rhiannon 

I just finished a Really Good 400 page book in a day instead of doing the three essays I have to do but that's Lockdown for you. Anyway the book was about love, and I'm currently writing a bit of my Secret Project 2.0 (which is at 70k words). I don't write about love or romance a lot but I realised two of my characters might in fact be more than friends, and this weird piece is about them.

I changed the names because it feels weird writing fanfic about my own characters from my own story that no one has finished reading yet. Also I'm unsure if this exert will come into the finished product, because I actually Love this idea very wholeheartedly and I think maybe it could be it's own piece if I wrote more of it.

Tell me what you think! Is this something you want to read more of, or do you feel it's a one time thing?

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