Chapter 41: A Quiet That Still Speaks
It had been nearly a month since Oriana left.
The world hadn't shattered.
But it also hadn't gone back to what it was.
Anya walked the same roads. Sat in the same classroom. Ate lunch in the same corner of the rooftop. But everything was slightly different now, like seeing her town through a veil of soft glass—muted, a little off-center.
It wasn't that she felt lost.
Just emptier.
Like a bird still flying the same path, even though the song beside it was gone.
The second scrapbook—the one Oriana had sent—now traveled with her everywhere. It lived in her satchel, pages still fresh and mostly blank. She hadn't drawn in it yet. Hadn't dared. It felt sacred somehow, like a vow she wasn't quite ready to open. Not until she felt she could write forward again, instead of just looking back.
But today, something in the air felt different. There was a crispness to the wind that hinted at early autumn, and for the first time in weeks, Anya's chest didn't ache the moment she looked at the sky.
She sat on the bench near the school gate, watching leaves tumble slowly across the sidewalk.
Oriana would have liked this kind of afternoon.
Would've leaned against her and said, It feels like the wind remembers something, doesn't it?
Anya smiled faintly, pulling out her phone.
She opened a new note and wrote:
"The air feels clean today.
I think your name is still floating in it."
She didn't send it. Just saved it again.
Some part of her was still learning that writing to Oriana didn't have to mean waiting for a reply.
Later that evening, she rode her bike to the shrine.
The old steps were damp with moss, and the lanterns hadn't been lit yet. She climbed quietly, listening to the cicadas hum between the silence. At the top, she stood before the offering box and pressed her palms together.
"I don't need anything," she whispered. "I just wanted to be where she once was."
She didn't cry.
She didn't even feel the tears forming.
Instead, there was this warm stillness inside her, like the echo of Oriana's touch hadn't quite left her skin. Like she could still feel her sitting there, hands clasped around her own, whispering something only the wind remembered.
That night, Anya finally opened the second scrapbook and pressed a leaf inside it.
Just one.
Golden-red. Curled slightly at the tip. From a tree they'd once passed during their walks.
Beneath it, she wrote:
"The first sign of autumn.
The season you loved most.
And the season I'm learning to survive without you."
She left the page open by her bedside.
And that night, she dreamed of Oriana's voice—faint and close all at once. Not saying come back, not asking for anything. Just being there. Like the hum of a song you didn't know you knew.
At school, things felt less sharp now.
Mina still waved to her across the courtyard, sometimes stopping by to sit beside her during breaks. They didn't talk about Oriana anymore—not because it was off-limits, but because Mina seemed to understand that some feelings were meant to live quietly.
One afternoon, Mina pulled out a pack of melon-flavored candies and placed one beside Anya's bento.
"You look better," she said, popping one into her mouth.
Anya smiled. "I'm still figuring it out."
"That's all any of us are doing."
There was something kind in Mina now—something Anya hadn't expected back when Oriana had first stood between them like a shield.
People changed. So did seasons.
And sometimes, Anya thought, grief carved space for grace to grow.
By the second week of October, a letter arrived.
Longer than the others.
Oriana's handwriting had shifted slightly—more rushed, like the words had tumbled out faster than usual.
"My wildflower,
I miss you every single morning. It's different here. The streets are quieter, but my thoughts are louder. I see you everywhere. In the curls of steam rising from my tea. In the leaves that gather under the school gate. I think missing someone is like being haunted, but in a way that makes you want to be haunted.
I wore your clip yesterday. The green one. Everyone asked if I'd cut my hair. I told them no. That it just remembered someone.
There's a girl here—Rei—who reminds me a little of Mina. Sharp edges but softer eyes. She gave me an extra scarf last week and didn't say anything about it. Just handed it to me and walked away.
I wonder if people like her are watching over you in my place.
Please let me believe they are.
All my seasons,
O."
Anya read it on the train, the sound of tracks clicking underneath her. She pressed the letter close to her chest and whispered, "They are."
That weekend, she returned to the clearing in the woods—their forest.
It was quieter now. The summer green had faded to rust and gold. The trees stood still and tall, their shadows longer, more thoughtful.
Anya sat on the same log where they once shared lunch, sketchbook in her lap. The wind moved gently through the leaves, and sunlight spilled across the ground in shifting shapes.
She drew slowly.
Oriana's hands.
Her braid caught in the wind.
The soft way her eyes closed when she listened to the breeze.
Then, with trembling fingers, she wrote:
"She isn't here.
But the quiet still speaks her name."
By Monday, the second scrapbook had five pages filled.
Each one different.
Some drawings. Some leaves. Some tiny pressed flowers from the garden near her house. One page simply had a list:
Things that still smell like her
Things that sound like her
Things I want to tell her when she's back
At the bottom, she had scrawled:
"Even this distance can't erase the shape of you in me."
There was no conclusion to her sadness.
Not really.
No final door that closed and made everything okay again.
But Anya was learning that maybe love didn't need an ending to be whole.
Oriana wasn't beside her anymore. But she was with her.
In the sky. In the trees. In the ink that trailed across every page Anya filled.
And in her chest, something quiet had begun to grow again.
Not in place of Oriana.
But because of her.