Evening light spills over the rocks and water of Shoal Creek, the view from Bryce’s apartment both familiar and dreamlike, as if memory itself painted the scene in warm golds and deep shadows.
I stand by the window of my downtown Austin apartment, gazing out at the slow bend of Shoal Creek below. Dusk softens the edges of the world. The limestone rocks along the creek’s banks glow amber, holding the last warmth of daylight, and the canopy of oak and pecan trees are silhouetted against a pastel sky. In the distance, city lights blink awake, but here in this moment my attention is drawn inward. In the glass reflection, I almost imagine I can see another me — a smaller, wide-eyed figure — standing beside me. The air is thick with the scent of recent rain on hot pavement and the gentle susurrus of water over stones. It feels like the boundary between present and past is as fragile as the evening light, the two bleeding together in a quiet, surreal haze.
On the table rests a creased photograph of a five-year-old child. Me. I had placed it there before my therapy session earlier today, not expecting the impact it would have. “Tell them you love them,” the therapist had urged gently. At first I resisted — the idea felt awkward, even indulgent. But as the afternoon light had filtered through the blinds of the therapist’s office, I found myself cradling the photo in trembling hands, tears blurring the smiling boy on the glossy paper. In that safe, hushed room, I crossed my arms over my chest, took a breath, and whispered: “I love you.” Then a pause, and again, stronger: “I love you.” Each repetition was a pebble dropped into a well, the words rippling through layers of time and hurt. By the third or fourth time, I wasn’t in that office anymore — I was with that child in the photograph, speaking across decades into his astonished brown eyes.
Now, back home, I let the memory of that breakthrough wash over me. Outside, the creek reflects a sliver of the dimming sky, a liquid mirror. I slide open the window to let in the evening breeze. The city’s noises fall away as a chorus of crickets rises from the creekside brush. I close my eyes and the gentle sounds transform into the hush of an earlier time. I am drifting, the way one might drift into a daydream or a half-remembered story, and the boundary between now and then gives way.
In my mind’s eye, the apartment walls fade. I am standing on the rocky bank of Shoal Creek as a child. My child-self — small, knees scabbed from play, sneakers untied — is crouching by the water, poking at tadpoles with a stick. I watch him for a moment. He is so fragile in this vision, a little boy lost in his own world. The late summer air is humid and sweet with cedar and earth. As I approach, dry leaves crackle under my feet and the little boy looks up, startled. I see his face clearly: the round cheeks streaked with dirt, the wary, searching look in his eyes. He recognizes me somehow — not as a stranger, but as someone familiar. Time bends in this gentle hallucination; I am both myself and a visitor from that boy’s future, and he senses it.
“Hi, Bryce,” I say softly. My voice catches because I realize I am speaking to him — to me — aloud in my apartment, and a sob threatens my throat. In the vision by the creek, the child Bryce tilts his head, curious and cautious. I sit down on a flat stone beside him. The stone is warm from the sun, just as my apartment floor is cool beneath my real feet; I feel both at once. The creek’s water babbles over a riffle, and for a moment we simply listen together, two versions of the same soul separated by invisible years.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I say. The words echo in both worlds. For so long, I realize, I have been looking — through the spiraling investigation into Vera Quan’s disappearance, through the late nights pouring over notes and clues, through the lonely walks along these very creek trails at midnight when I couldn’t sleep. Some part of me was searching for Vera, yes, but some other part was desperately searching for this boy, for the self I left behind. He doesn’t answer, but his eyes remain fixed on me, wide and unblinking.
The creek gurgles and I notice the boy’s hand is shaking slightly, the stick quivering in his grasp. He’s afraid, I think. Perhaps of me, or perhaps of the growing shadows of evening. I gently ask, “May I sit with you a while?” He nods, just once. We sit. I realize I am wearing the same clothes I had on earlier today — jeans and the soft gray T-shirt stained with coffee — absurdly out of place in this reconstructed childhood scene. The little Bryce is wearing a Power Rangers tee and grass-stained shorts; I remember that outfit intimately. It was my favorite, back when Mom was still around to do laundry, before… well, before the first of many hollowings in my life.
A dragonfly skims the creek’s surface, and little Bryce points at it, a small smile flitting across his face. I smile too. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I whisper. He nods again, more vigorously this time. In that nod, I see how his shaggy dark hair falls over his forehead, and how he’s missing a front tooth. I had forgotten that. An urge wells up in me — an urge to protect him, to hold him. But I know I mustn’t frighten him. Instead, I take a slow breath, as I did in therapy, and place a hand on my heart. He watches this gesture, and in a spontaneous mirroring, he places his tiny hand on his own chest, mimicking me. The sight nearly breaks me open.
“Bryce,” I say, voice low, “I have something to tell you.” My adult voice trembles with the weight of what I’m about to say. He waits, expectant and serious, as children often are when they sense something important is happening. The trees around us seem to lean in; even the creek’s murmur hushes to a soft lull. “I want you to know,” I continue, each word heavy and sacred, “that I love you. I love you so, so much.”
He blinks up at me. For a moment, nothing. I panic internally — what if this little boy can’t understand? What if he doesn’t believe me? My mind floods with memories of how alone we felt back then, after Dad left, after Mom’s illness got bad, after the confusing silence of the adults who were supposed to care for us. I almost start apologizing — for all the times I wasn’t protected, for the years of feeling unworthy — but then I see it: a quiver in his lip, a cracking open in his face. He heard me.
“You… you do?” he asks in a small, incredulous voice. The stick in his hand slides into the water and floats away, forgotten. I nod, swallowing hard. “I promise. I love you, kiddo. And I’m not going to leave you. I’m right here.” My own tears finally overflow at that, blurring the vision of his little face. He reaches out then — his grubby, wet little hand touches my knee, unsure. Instinctively, I cover his hand with mine. It is warm and real and I can feel the calluses of his palm from the monkey bars. He’s real. I’m real. We’re here together.
In the fading light, I pull him into a hug. He comes willingly, collapsing against my chest with a softness and trust that utterly undoes me. I feel his small arms wrap as far as they can around my ribs. I cradle the back of his head, that familiar cowlick against my fingers. He’s shaking, and I realize I am shaking too — both of us silently crying in relief. “I love you,” I whisper again into his hair, rocking slightly. “I love you and I’m sorry I made you wait so long to hear that.” He sniffles and burrows closer, as if trying to hide in the fabric of my shirt. I can feel the damp of his tears (or are they mine?) soaking through.
How long we stay like that, I don’t know. The sky above has deepened to purple, and a single star pricks through. Eventually, we separate just enough to see each other’s faces. He’s smiling now — a shy, radiant little smile that I recognize as my own, though I haven’t seen it in years. I brush a tear from his cheek with my thumb. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell him — and I mean it, I mean it for the first time in my adult life. “You’re going to grow up and do amazing things. You’ll write stories and paint pictures and your heart will be big and kind. And I’ll be with you through all of it.”
He nods seriously, as if accepting a great responsibility. In his eyes, I see something new: a light, a flicker of hope or confidence. It’s subtle, but it’s there — the belief that he is lovable, that he has a future worth living for. I realize that this is the very spark I have been missing in myself. By giving it to him, I have given it to me. The hollow ache that I’ve carried for so long — that sense of having to earn affection through achievement, of trying to fill an insatiable void with other people’s approval — it isn’t throbbing right now. In its place is a swelling warmth, a fullness. It is love, simple and unconditional, flowing from me to this child and back again in a perfect circle.
A breeze picks up, rustling the leaves overhead. The vision of the creek begins to waver, like a reflection disturbed by a pebble. My five-year-old self squeezes my hand, alarmed that I might vanish. “Will I see you again?” he asks hurriedly, eyes big with worry. My heart lurches. I know our strange meeting of the souls is drawing to an end. I squeeze back. “I’m always with you,” I assure him. “I am you. We can’t really be apart, not ever.” He considers this, then gives a resolute nod. I feel pride at that gesture — his quiet bravery. The world shimmers; I hear the faint sound of a car horn from the city, and the outlines of the rocks and trees are fading.
“Take this with you,” I say quickly as the dreamscape dissolves around us. I press my palm flat against his chest — against my chest — and imagine pouring all my warmth and acceptance into that little body. “All this love, it’s yours. It’s always been yours.” He closes his eyes and places his small hand over mine, as if trapping the feeling inside. When he opens them again, I see myself in those eyes — not just the child, but the man I’ve become, too. “Thank you,” he whispers. There’s more I want to say, so much more, but I only manage to smile through my tears. The creek, the boy, the entire scene becomes bright, white, weightless — and then, gently, it is gone.
I open my eyes to the quiet of my apartment. My cheeks are wet, and my heart is pounding with a strange mix of grief and joy. Outside, true night has fallen. The limestone bluff across the creek is just a dark shape against the sky, and I can see the reflection of my lamp in the window now. I am alone — and yet I don’t feel alone. I feel an inexplicable wholeness knitting itself together inside me. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and let out a long, shuddering breath.
The photo of my younger self still lies on the table, illuminated by a pool of amber lamplight. I pick it up, regard the boyish grin once more. With a tender reverence, I place the photo in a new frame I’d bought on the way home, and set it on the bookshelf where I can see it every day. It’s not going back into a dusty drawer or a forgotten album. This is my reminder that he’s here with me always, and that I am loved by him as much as he is by me. The measure of my worth is no longer hollow; it is filled with this love.
I find my journal — the battered leather notebook that has sat mostly empty for months — and flip to a fresh page. There are things I need to write. Want to write. The creative impulse that I had stifled out of fear begins to flutter awake, tentative but persistent. I realize I’m no longer terrified of the blank page or of my own voice. What is there to fear, when the worst critic — myself — has been disarmed with compassion? I uncap my pen, and words flow — haltingly at first, then faster, like the creek after a rain. I write about a detective named Vera Quan, and a friend who wouldn’t give up on her… I write about loneliness and longing, and about two versions of the same person finding each other at last. The lines come freely, without the old self-doubt strangling them before they can form. Each word feels like a small triumph, an affirmation that I am here and I am allowed to speak.
When I finally set the pen down, I feel lighter than I have in ages. Outside, the moon’s reflection dances on Shoal Creek’s surface, shimmering with possibility. In this gentle night, I realize that my relationship to my art — to every story I yearn to tell, every canvas I hunger to paint — has transformed. No longer is it a performance to win others’ love or to prove my value; it is a natural extension of the love I have found within. I am my own audience, my own muse, and that is enough. Through the window, a stray breeze carries the faint laughter of someone walking by below, and I smile, quietly sharing in their joy.
I whisper one last thank you — to the universe, to the little boy in the photo, to myself. In this city pulsing with life, in this small apartment overlooking the creek, I have finally made contact with the part of me that was missing. And as I prepare for bed, I know that when morning comes, I will sit at my desk by this window. I will watch the sunlight dance on Shoal Creek, and I will write fearlessly, love guiding my hand. The hollow things within me have been filled with gold, and I am whole.