When Elliott proudly presents his new book—an anthology of romantic poetry—to Leah, her cheeks flame. She receives it with two hands, holding it so carefully that an onlooker might think it was made of glass. When she steps out of Elliott's hut to make her way home, it's raining. Without a second thought, she removes her rain jacket and wraps it around the book. She gets drenched on the way home, but she thinks it's worth it. The book, after all, is safe and dry.

She showers quickly, warming the chill settling in her bones. She hesitates for a moment before slipping into her nicest pyjamas—a silk pair that her mother bought her for Christmas one year—and slips under her bed covers. After a long and shaking breath, she reaches over to her bedside and picks up the small book. It feels heavy in her hands.

"Oh."

The realisation hits her like a freight train.

The poems aren't about her.

They speak of hair like sunshine, sapphire eyes, and a voice smooth as honey. Leah thinks, her stomach lurching, that the description matches Haley to a tee. She shakes her head rapidly, trying to rid her mind of the thought. It doesn't matter who the poems are about. The only important thing is that they aren't about her.

She stares at the pages in front of her, desperately trying to find herself somewhere in between the lines. It's a futile effort. Deep inside, she knows that. But she can't help but to try. She'd be happy there was just one mention of her—an abstract reference to a conversation they'd had or a short description of her slender hands at work. She flips through the pages, growing more frantic by the second.

The poems really aren't about her. Not a single one of them.

For Elliott, it's never been about her. Even though he's in every one of sculptures—the curve of his nose, the shape edge of cheek bones—she has never been a single word in his poems.

She cries, not caring when her tears wet the paper.