Not alone, yet lonely.
“Yearning was such a romantic word for something that hurt. It hurts yet feels too beautiful to be true. People spoke of yearning as if it belonged inside poetry books and tragic love stories. As if it were soft candlelight, handwritten letters, rain against windows. Everyone yearns for something at least once in life... but only God knows what it feels like to be yearned.”
Ophelia rested the tip of her pen against the paper of her diary for a moment, staring at the sentences she had just written beneath the warm glow of her bedside lamp.
She thought people loved it so much because it sounded prettier than loneliness. Softer than grief. More poetic than wanting things you could never truly have.
Because loneliness sounded empty.
Grief sounded heavy.
But yearning?
Yearning sounded alive.
The sentences sat there beneath the warm amber glow of her bedside lamp, ink still slightly wet against the cream-colored paper.
For a long moment, Ophelia only stared at it.
The apartment around her remained silent except for the ticking clock near the bookshelf and the soft rainfall tapping endlessly against the windowpane. The sound filled the room gently, like the city itself had fallen asleep hours ago.
She should sleep too.
Tomorrow would begin early again.
Still, she remained there for another minute, fingers loosely curled around the pen while exhaustion settled heavily into her shoulders.
Her room smelled faintly of old books, vanilla body lotion, and rain drifting through the slightly opened window.
The space there was- small. Cluttered. Lived in.
Fiction books rested everywhere possible- stacked beside her bed, crammed unevenly across shelves, scattered across the desk beneath dried highlighters and forgotten receipts. A few leaned dangerously near collapse like exhausted towers waiting for gravity to win.
Most of them were second-hand, which she called “Thrifted” just to sound fancy.
Some carried strangers’ notes in the margins.
Some smelled like dust and time.
Some had cracked spines held together with transparent tape.
One was missing nearly thirty pages in the middle.
Ophelia loved them all anyway.
Books felt honest to her.
People abandoned them, damaged them, forgot them for years, yet they still waited patiently to be opened again.
She understood that kind of existence more than she probably should have.
A small breath escaped her lips.
She stretched her arms.
Then quietly, she closed the diary.
The worn leather cover brushed softly beneath her fingertips before she slipped it beneath a stack of novels beside the bed.
Hidden again.
Like always.
No one knew she wrote.
No one would care enough to ask.
At Bellamy Dance Academy- where she taught, people knew her as the quiet instructor with tired eyes and gentle patience. The one children liked because she never raised her voice. The one parents trusted because she smiled politely and worked overtime without complaint.
No one there would imagine she spent sleepless nights scribbling thoughts into hidden diaries like they were secrets too fragile for daylight.
Ophelia stood slowly from the chair, wincing slightly as tension pulled through her lower back.
Her muscles ached from teaching for nearly nine hours straight in multiple batches.
Tiny ballet slippers.
Corrected postures.
Repeated counts.
Smiling until her cheeks hurt.
By the final class, her body had started moving automatically while her mind wandered elsewhere entirely.
Toward stories.
Toward words.
Toward lives that belonged to fictional people instead of her own.
Outside her thoughts- the kettle in the kitchen clicked softly.
“Right... The water.” She spoke to herself as if almost reminding to come out of her thoughts.
She had forgotten that she reheated it nearly fifteen minutes ago.
Pushing open her bedroom door carefully, Ophelia stepped into the dim hallway of the apartment. The wooden floor creaked faintly beneath her feet, and instinctively she slowed her movements.
Her father was sleeping.
Or at least she hoped he was.
The coughing had finally stopped about an hour ago after his medicine kicked in.
She moved quietly through the kitchen, pouring warm water into a chipped ceramic mug decorated with faded blue flowers. The mug used to belong to her mother.
Most things in the apartment used to belong to her mother.
The curtains.
The violin in the corner no one played anymore.
The dazzling suncatcher hanging near the window.
Even Bellamy Dance Academy itself had once belonged to her mother's dreams.
Ophelia wrapped both hands around the mug and leaned against the kitchen counter, allowing the warmth to seep slowly into her fingers.
Her eyes drifted toward the small calendar beside the refrigerator.
Three hospital appointments next week.
A payment reminder beneath them.
Electricity bill overdue by four days.
Repair the loose studio mirror.
Buy groceries.
Pick up medicines.
Her chest tightened slightly.
The list never ended anymore.
Sometimes it felt like her life existed entirely in fragments of responsibility. Small things constantly demanding pieces of her before she could even think about herself.
At some point, she had stopped asking what she wanted from life.
Not dramatically.
Not all at once.
It simply became easier not to think about it.
Easier to wake up every morning and continue moving.
Easier to preserve her mother’s academy.
Easier to care for her father.
Easier to survive.
Dreams became dangerous when reality could barely afford necessities.
Rain slid softly down the kitchen window while the city outside glowed in blurred golden lights.
Ophelia stared at them quietly.
Somewhere out there, people were probably still awake laughing inside crowded restaurants, falling in love beneath neon signs, making impulsive decisions they would remember years later.
Meanwhile, she stood alone in a dim apartment reheating water at midnight because sleep refused to come easily anymore.
The thought almost made her laugh.
Almost.
Her gaze shifted toward the dining table instead.
A thick hardcover novel rested there beneath the yellow kitchen light.
Immediately, something softer entered her expression.
The library-issue stamp peeked from the edge of the pages.
She had borrowed it three days ago after work.
A ridiculous decision financially, considering she already calculated every dollar she spent each week. Even library fees felt indulgent sometimes.
Yet books remained the one thing she continuously allowed herself to want.
Because books made her feel alive in ways dance no longer could.
That realization still carried guilt.
Her mother had loved dance with everything she was.
Breathing.
Existing.
Loving.
For her mother, dancing had never simply been art.
It had been passionate love.
Ophelia loved it too.
But differently.
Dance exhausted her in ways stories never did.
When she read, something inside her awakened instead of drained away.
And sometimes that truth felt almost cruel.
She took another sip of warm water.
Outside, rain continued falling softly across the sleeping city.
Endless.
Patient.
The kind of rain that made the entire world feel quieter than usual.
Eventually, Ophelia returned to her room carrying the novel with her. She settled beneath the blanket and opened the hardcover carefully, immediately greeted by the comforting scent of old paper.
Thirty-eight pages later, exhaustion finally dragged at her eyes.
She marked her place reluctantly before turning off the lamp.
Darkness wrapped around the room instantly.
Only the rain remained.
Ophelia closed her eyes.
And sometime during the night-
She began running.
Her breath tore painfully through her lungs as her feet slipped against soaked ground. Rain crashed violently through dark branches overhead while panic clawed its way up her throat.
Run.
The thought echoed instinctively inside her mind.
Run faster.
Cold air burned her chest.
Mud splashed against her legs.
Something behind her moved through the darkness.
Not footsteps.
Not breathing.
Just presence.
Heavy.
Wrong.
Terrifying enough to make fear pulse violently beneath her skin.
Ophelia pushed herself harder despite the pain shooting through her legs. Branches scratched against her arms as she stumbled through endless darkness, unable to see where she was going.
The forest around her felt alive somehow.
Watching.
Waiting.
Rain blurred everything.
She tried to look behind her once.
Just once.
But suddenly her foot caught against something hidden beneath the mud.
The world tilted sharply.
Then-
Ophelia woke with a broken gasp.
Her body jerked upright instantly as air rushed painfully into her lungs. Sweat clung coldly against the back of her neck despite the freezing room.
For several seconds, she could only stare blankly into the darkness.
Disoriented.
Shaking.
The rain still tapped softly against the windows.
The clock beside her bed glowed faintly.
2:07 AM.
Ophelia pressed trembling fingers against her chest, trying to slow her heartbeat.
The nightmare was already fading.
It always faded too quickly.
Only fragments remained afterward.
Rain.
Panting.
Chilled spine.
Darkness.
Running.
Fear so overwhelming it felt almost real even after waking.
Those dreams visited her occasionally. Never close enough together to understand, yet never far enough apart to completely forget... Just like some forgotten memory.
And she hated them.
Mostly because some small part of her always felt like she knew whatever chased her- just can't recall it.
Even if she never remember seeing it.
