The rain began sometime after midnight.
Amelia lay awake, the soft patter against the skylight above her bed syncing with the rhythm of her thoughts. Daniel's warmth still lingered in her sheets, though he was gone by the time she'd stirred. Not abruptly. Not angrily. Just… quietly.
She wasn't sure what unnerved her more—his absence, or the fact that he hadn't woken her to say goodbye.
In the stillness, she rose, wrapping herself in the robe he always seemed to leave behind, as if forgetting was his way of returning. The scent of him—cedar and paint—clung to the fabric, intimate and invasive all at once.
Downstairs, the studio waited.
She didn't paint. She couldn't.
Instead, she stood in front of the canvas she'd started days ago. The one meant for herself. No commissions. No critics. No Daniel.
But he was there anyway. In the curve of a shadow she hadn't meant to shape like his jaw. In the tension of every line—coiled, restrained. As if her hands couldn't forget what her heart hadn't fully claimed.
When the knock came, it was tentative.
She froze, brush hovering in the air, body on alert.
Daniel?
But when she opened the door, it wasn't him.
It was Julian.
Soaked to the skin, hair plastered to his forehead, his usual arrogance stripped raw by the storm. He looked like a man who'd run out of clever things to say—and that terrified her more than anything he could've whispered.
"I shouldn't be here," he said, voice low.
"No," Amelia agreed, crossing her arms. "You really shouldn't."
He exhaled sharply, eyes scanning her like he was memorizing her all over again. "But I needed to see you. To say what I couldn't that night."
"That night wasn't about you."
"I know." A pause. "But part of it always will be."
She didn't respond. The silence between them hung like wet cloth—heavy, clinging.
Julian stepped forward but stopped at the threshold. "You loved me once."
"Yes," she said, her voice steady. "But you never let me be whole in that love."
"And him?" His eyes narrowed. "Does he?"
"He lets me be real," she answered. "Even when it scares both of us."
Julian flinched. For a second, the man before her wasn't a rival or ghost—but something more human. Wounded. Wanting.
"Then I hope he deserves you," he murmured. "Because I didn't."
And just like that, he left.
No kiss. No plea. No drama.
Only the faint echo of regret on the steps behind him.
Amelia stood there long after he disappeared, the door still open to the rain. The storm outside was nothing compared to the one inside her.
She picked up her phone.
Daniel: Are you awake?
Her fingers hovered. For a breath. For a heartbeat.
Amelia: Come back.
No explanation. No defense.
Just a truth she was done hiding from.
And somewhere in the distance, beneath the weight of silence, a new beginning waited.