Chapter Two: The Next Chapter Calling Me

I didn’t get a chance to say it in the moment, but I live in Petaluma too.

And I know how this sounds—like I got swept up in a moment and didn’t know how to let it go. But it wasn’t like that. I’m not some hopeless romantic chasing a ghost. It wasn’t obsession. It was... a pull. Something deeper. Quieter. A feeling that wouldn’t loosen its grip, no matter how I tried to shake it. Like the world had nudged me, gently but firmly, toward a moment that wasn’t finished yet.

I told myself I’d go back to the city bookstore, just once more. Then again. And again. I passed it every week during my commute, sometimes stepping in, pretending I needed something. But it was always the same. Same hum of quiet music. Same soft light. But she wasn’t there.

I kept the hairpin in my coat pocket. Not out of sentimentality—at least not at first. But touching it reminded me it wasn’t all in my head.

Eventually, I stopped going.

Instead, I started searching closer to home.

Sonoma County has a few bookstores. Bigger ones. The kind where it’s easy to miss someone, and even easier to forget them. I went to each of them. Browsed the romance section. The fantasy shelves. The newer releases. Sometimes I bought something just to stay longer. Other times I brought a book and pretended to read, hoping I could turn the page to the next chapter.

I even embarrassed myself once or twice—trying to explain the story, describe her, the way she looked. The flushed cheeks. The silver hairpin. They wanted to help. But none of them could say they had seen her.

Still, I kept going.

I’d sit with a coffee, rereading old stories and pretending they were signs. Hoping to bump into her again. But deep down, I knew… I couldn’t keep waiting in doorways hoping fate would bring her through.

And then, one evening, it came to me—not like an idea, more like a calling.

A way to bring her to me. To bring anyone like her to me.

The Velvet Chapter.

A bookstore not just to sell stories, but to create one.

Mine.

Ours.

If she ever finds it… she’ll know.

And I’ll be there—waiting, watching the door..

Every month, I’ll leave her a letter. Tucked between the pages. Behind the counter. Somewhere only she would think to look.

A story within the story.

A way to say what I never got to.