Elowen Skye

 

The sky over Windmere High was always the same shade of soft blue, the kind that made you feel like something magical could happen. It was the first week of September, the kind of week where the air was still warm enough to feel like summer, but you knew change was coming. For sixteen-year-old Eli Harper, change had already arrived.

Eli wasn’t popular. He wasn’t the guy people pointed to in the hall or whispered about in classes. He didn’t play sports or post videos online or have a perfectly styled haircut. He liked sketching clouds in the back of his notebooks and sitting by the science building during lunch, away from the noise. But something shifted the day a girl with a scarlet scarf and quiet eyes sat beside him without asking.

Her name was Lila. She didn’t introduce herself the first day. She just sat there, reading a book with a cover that looked older than time. She didn’t speak, and neither did he. They just sat in silence, the kind that felt oddly comforting. The next day, she returned. Again, no words. Just quiet company and the occasional stolen glance. On the third day, she offered him half of her apple. That’s when he finally spoke.

“You always sit here alone?” he asked, unsure why his voice felt so nervous.

She nodded. “You do too.”

Eli smiled. “I guess now we’re not alone anymore.”

From then on, they became something that felt like gravity. No one officially called it love, and no one needed to. It was in the way they waited for each other between classes, how she’d draw tiny suns in the margins of his sketchbook, and how he’d start carrying an extra apple just in case she forgot hers.

They never kissed. They never even held hands. But their connection was louder than anything physical. It was poetry without needing to rhyme.

One late afternoon, as golden light poured over the quad like honey, Lila turned to him and asked, “Do you believe in endings?”

He frowned. “Like... the kind in stories?”

She nodded, her voice quieter. “Happy endings. Sad ones. Just... endings.”

“I think everything ends eventually,” he said honestly. “But I also think some things are so beautiful, the end doesn’t matter.”

Lila smiled. That sad sort of smile that hides something behind it.

That night, she didn’t reply to his text. The next day, she wasn’t at school. Nor the day after. By the end of the week, Eli had asked around. No one seemed to know much about her. A few teachers said she was in their classes, but she rarely spoke. No one had noticed she was gone.

Confused and worried, he biked across town to the address she’d once casually mentioned. It was a small white house with peeling paint and a mailbox hanging crookedly. An older woman answered the door.

“Hi,” Eli said nervously. “I’m a friend of Lila’s.”

The woman’s face changed. Her eyes softened, but a shadow passed through them.

“You must be Eli,” she said quietly. “Lila talked about you.”

His heart caught in his chest. “Is she okay?”

The woman hesitated. “Lila was sick. For a long time. She didn’t tell many people. Didn’t want anyone to look at her like she was breaking.”

He couldn’t breathe.

“She passed away two days ago,” the woman said, voice trembling. “Peacefully. In her sleep.”

The world tilted. Time slowed. Words crashed like waves he couldn’t escape.

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” she added, offering him a small envelope. “She asked me to give this to you.”

He walked home with shaking hands, the envelope clutched to his chest like a lifeline. Inside was a single piece of paper, folded delicately.

Dear Eli,

I never thought I’d find someone like you. Someone who sees the world the same way I do—not in loud moments, but in the quiet ones. I didn’t want to tell you I was sick because I didn’t want our story to be about that. I wanted it to be about apples, and sunshine, and drawing tiny suns in sketchbooks. I wanted you to remember me smiling, not fading.

You gave me the best days of my life. Not because we did anything huge. But because you made ordinary days feel like they were worth staying for.

I’m not scared anymore. But I am sad. Because I won’t get to see how your story continues. So please promise me this: keep sketching. Keep noticing the clouds. And when you see someone sitting alone, sit next to them. Give them a piece of your apple.

Love, always,

Lila

He read the letter over and over until the ink smudged from his tears. For a long time, he didn’t go back to their spot. It felt too heavy. Too empty.

But eventually, he did. One sunny afternoon in October, Eli sat on the bench beneath their tree. He opened his sketchbook, drew a cloud, and waited.

A girl walked by, looking lost and quiet. She hesitated when she saw him.

“You can sit,” he said, smiling gently.

She did.

Without a word, he pulled an apple from his bag and offered her half.

Lila wasn’t a chapter. She wasn’t even a full story. She was a moment. A spark. A soft voice reminding him that love doesn’t always need to last forever to change someone completely.