You found Speak Now sitting cross-legged on an empty theater stage, barefoot, a soft purple notebook in her lap and a vintage typewriter beside her. She didn’t look up right away.

—“I was rewriting the ending,” she murmured, fingers still on the keys. “Again.”

That was always her—somewhere between reality and a scene she hadn’t lived yet, caught in the middle of memory and imagination.

The late afternoon sun spilled through the dusty windows, casting golden stripes across the wooden floor. You sat beside her, careful not to disturb the papers scattered like petals around her feet. Some were songs, some letters. One had your name on it—but you didn’t ask.

—“I think about it all the time,” she said suddenly, “what I should’ve said. Or could’ve.”

You nodded. With Speak Now, there was no pretending. She didn’t believe in keeping things light when your heart was full of stories.

She handed you the lilac notebook, its pages filled with neat, looping handwriting.

—“I write them down,” she explained, brushing her bangs behind her ear. “The things I never said out loud. So they don’t just... disappear.”

You flipped through it slowly. Some entries were full of rage. Others held the soft ache of what-ifs. And yet, none of them felt bitter. Just... honest.

Later, the two of you climbed to the balcony. The stage below was empty, but you could still hear echoes—faint laughter, forgotten applause, words that once waited to be spoken.