The first note appeared beside a sentence about loneliness.

You are not difficult to love. You are difficult to reach when you’ve decided you’re already leaving.

Amara stared at the handwriting. She had worked in the library for eleven years and read that novel at least a dozen times. The note was new. The ink had not faded.

She turned the page. Another note waited in the margin, answering a question she had written in her journal the night before: How do you know when to stop waiting?

When waiting becomes the only way you know how to love someone.

For a week, the notes continued. They never signed a name. They were never sentimental. They seemed to know when she had had a difficult day, when she had smiled at a stranger, when she had nearly called the man who left her with no explanation.

On Friday, she left a question in the margin: Who are you?

On Monday, the answer was there: Someone who has been sitting three tables away, hoping you would look up.

Amara scanned the reading room. A man by the window lowered his book. He had kind eyes and the apologetic smile of someone caught doing something both brave and foolish.

“You wrote in a library book,” she said when he approached.

“I know. I’m prepared to accept the full punishment.”

She wanted to be stern. She wanted to ask how he had known what she needed to hear. Instead, she noticed the title of the book he carried: the same novel, its cover worn smooth.

“You’ve been reading this too?” she asked.

“For years.” He paused. “I used to read it with someone who looked exactly like you.”

Amara’s smile vanished. “Who?”

He turned to the last page. A photograph had been tucked inside: her mother, young, holding the same book.