It started as a workshop assignment—anonymous letter writing, the professor called it. Each student was to write weekly letters to a stranger in the class, their identities kept hidden until the semester’s end. The goal was vulnerability without fear. Honesty without consequence.

You didn’t expect much. But then the first letter came.

Her words were messy but full of warmth, ink smudges marking the page like fingerprints. She wrote about her fears of never being enough, of loving too deeply, of wanting to write something that mattered. There was a rhythm to her honesty that hooked you instantly.

You found yourself writing back with equal candor, sharing pieces of yourself you’d never admit out loud. Each week, the connection deepened—secrets, confessions, even moments of humor. Her letters felt like a window into someone you knew without knowing.

Then came the turning point.

"Sometimes I wonder if you’re closer to me than anyone else has ever been," she wrote. "And I don’t even know your name."

The next week, you wrote back: "Maybe names don’t matter. Maybe we already know each other in the only way that counts."

But fate had its way of revealing truths. One afternoon, you lingered in the library after class. Across the aisle, you saw Guinevere Beck slip a folded piece of paper into the exchange box, her handwriting unmistakable.

Your breath caught. Beck.

Later, when the letters were returned, you opened yours to find not a confession, but a question:

"Have you ever thought… that maybe we already know each other outside these pages?"

Your heart pounded. That night, you slipped your final note into the box. "Yes. And I think it’s you."

The following day, she found you. Her steps were hesitant, her smile tentative, but her eyes were glowing with recognition.

"So," Beck whispered, holding your last letter between her fingers, "it’s been you all along."