A/N: Short one-shot. I wasn't listening to the Circle Game, but something clicked when I heard that title. Sorry if this is a little sketchy, I wrote it from bottom then top then the in between stuff.
Disclaimer: I own...myself. Oh no, wait; that's the devil.
--
She had received the book one week prior to her graduation. She didn't show it to her mom, not just because she knew she wouldn't understand, but because this was something that she wanted to keep to herself. She wanted to add it to her collection of memories, even if that book was growing thin.
It was Ayn Rand. It only made sense that way, because it meant that he had read it for her. It meant that those notes in the margins were written when she was seventeen, because the book was not new and neither were the feelings (I love you).
She couldn't decide whether her heat was beating or not.
It took her another two weeks after her graduation to look at it again. When she re-read the words, she realized that she had her own thoughts that had been brewing for five years, and she wanted to let him know.
She sent it back to him with her own words brimming between the margins. Her handwriting looked out of place against the wrinkled pages, dusted over time with that off-white, stiff layer of forget. Her sharp black pen didn't match the faded words, and a stab of regret washed through her as she stared at the ruined book. But it only made sense that it should look off. That was exactly what they were when they were together.
It was sent back to her promptly, but no apology was held inside the pages.
She promised herself that she wouldn't have her heart broken again. She decided that if there was one way she could stop herself from holding on, and convince herself to let go, she would have to send it back, one last time. Her hand was shaking as she wrote the words, her tears falling quietly across the worn pages and landing with the thud of finality. This is goodbye, it said. And she knew that if she had taken the time to look things over, it would have seemed childish, but she also knew that this was the only way that they could, at last, have closure.
Because goodbye was the one word that they always had trouble with.
Two weeks later, she received a package in the mail. It was a book, and she knew immediately that it was his, not just by the simple front page but by the feeling in her stomach that this was it. The end. It was about a boy who found himself. Not by traveling the world or studying in college; but by remembering the perfect determination that one girl once held, and the place she still held in him. She loved it, but for some reason she felt like something was missing.
She flipped to the very last page for the third time, but one word caught her eye that hadn't before. It was not written in the clean black print of Times New Roman. It was cramped and small and precise, with every intention of being looked over. And suddenly, it made sense to her why her dark pen lines and his faded pencil marks should somehow seem just right. She stared at that one word and she realized that sometimes, fate wants you to find out for yourself if something is worth waiting for. And the smile that passed across her face could only be described as hopeful as, finally, she understood: Hello.
They didn't do goodbyes.
Because they both knew that one more hello was waiting.