Rain in Edinburgh seldom comes as a storm. It usually falls gently like memories knocking uninvited.
Outside Aerish Elowen's window, tiny droplets gathered on the glass, tracing soft lines like a poem left unfinished.
On her desk, a notebook lay open.
Black ink had dried mid sentence:
You saved me beneath the rain, but forgot me when the sky turned clear…
Aerish didn't move.
She simply sat there, staring blankly at the last word, as if the letters had wrapped themselves around her heart.
Silence filled the room, embracing her in its fragile stillness.
From beyond the door, came Liora Valeen's soft voice.
"Ris? Don't tell me you're not ready yet."
The door creaked open without waiting for an answer.
The scent of peppermint and morning dew followed Liora as she stepped in, her damp coat dripping rainwater onto the wooden floor.
Her dark hair clung to her shoulders, tousled by the wind.
"You haven't changed.
Don't tell me you stayed up writing again?"
Aerish shook her head.
"Not writing,
remembering."
Liora picked up a white shirt from the chair and tossed it into Aerish's lap.
"If you don't get dressed in the next three minutes, I'm going to read your poem out loud in Professor Thorne's class."
"Maybe he'll cry," Aerish murmured.
"Maybe I'll cry first."
A soft laugh rippled between them, cracked and light, like morning light slipping through the curtains.
---
Elmsworth Literary Academy stood like the lingering shadow of autumn, not yet ready to leave. Its stone halls held the echoes of forgotten verses and the footsteps of young souls still searching for meaning.
On the eastern courtyard, students hurried along, their long coats billowing in the wind.
The rain never truly stopped in this city it merely changed shape:
from mist to drizzle to a delicate, quiet patter.
Liora spoke nearly without pause about linguistics class, Sera Aurelienne's essay that was too perfect, and Eliah Rowan reading Sylvia Plath alone by the library window the night before.
"You know," she said, "sometimes I want to write a letter to the past.
And tell it please, don't remember so much."
Aerish only smiled.
On her cheek, the falling rain was indistinguishable from the kind that grew from within.
---
Professor Ivor Thorne's class was held in Room 204 tall walls, windows borrowing the grey light from the sky.
In that room, poetry wasn't recited; it was felt, like a breath held too long.
Today, they were studying The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Professor Thorne's voice filtered through the silence like a broken prayer.
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…"
In the front row sat Kael Renford.
His dark hair was still wet from the rain.
He took notes calmly, like someone who had long made peace with the world. Aerish sat in the back, far away, quietly stealing glances.
And when their eyes met briefly, fleetingly Kael nodded politely.
A simple gesture, like greeting a stranger not quite remembered.
But it was enough to shatter every wall Aerish had carefully built around herself.
He doesn't remember me.
---
After class, Liora pulled Aerish's hand.
"You need coffee,and silence."
Aerish gazed out the rain-speckled window. "And a seat by the window."
"Always."
---
The Quill & Rain a tiny café at the end of the cobbled street smelled of cinnamon and old pages.
Its yellow lights glowed softly, and its windows cradled the rain with gentle warmth.
Eliah Rowan greeted them from behind the counter, wearing a wool sweater and round glasses.
He looked like a poem forgotten in someone's drawer.
"Window seat,two cappuccinos,"Liora ordered.
"And give Aerish space to drown a little."
Aerish wrapped her hands around the warm cup.
The drizzle outside fell like a musical score that could never quite finish.
Eliah approached and placed a book on the table."Page 112," he whispered.
Aerish opened it.
Lines of old poetry waited for her:
There is love that grows like moss unseen, but clinging to the walls of time…
Her hand trembled as she read.
Liora watched her carefully.
"When was the last time you truly wrote?"
Aerish closed her eyes.
"Three years ago. When someone gave me a pen, then left before I could ask their name."
---
Three years?
No,longer.
The memory returned abruptly, without warning .
Like the rain that day.
A quiet afternoon.
A wet sidewalk beneath streetlamps.
And a little girl standing alone, clutching a book, without an umbrella her body trembling, waiting for something she couldn't name.
Footsteps approached from afar,
a boy around fifteen stood before her.
His hair soaked, his eyes warm enough to make time halt.
"This is for you," he said, offering a silver metal pen, delicately engraved.
Aerish looked at it, confused. "What is it?"
"My father's pen,but I think you need it more. You look like someone carrying too many words, with no place to write them."
She held the pen like a strange, warm relic. "Are you a writer?"
The boy gave a soft smile. "I just hope… that words can save someone."
Then he left, running into the mist no name, no goodbye.
All that remained was the rain, the pen, and a heart pounding too loud.
---
That evening, Aerish returned to the Stone Library.
The spiral stairs welcomed her with a soft creak.
She sat in a quiet corner, opened a new journal, and with the silver pen, she wrote:
I didn't know your name then.
But I kept your pen like a piece of you I was never meant to find again.
Now I know who you are,Kael Renford.
But you've forgotten.
Her hand paused,then continued:
Maybe fate is fond of cruel jokes.
But I will write until this ink runs dry.
Maybe someday, you'll read.
And know that there was a love that lived without needing to be known.
---
Night fell softly.
In her room, Aerish lit a small candle.
On her desk, an old iron box lay open. Inside, pages upon pages of notes were neatly stored all written for someone who never knew he had once become the world to a girl he saved once, then forgot forever.
On the last page, Aerish wrote:
If you ever read this, don't come looking for me.
Just know I once loved you in silence.
With the pen you left behind in the rain.
Outside, Kael stood in front of the old bookstore owned by Liora's father. His eyes lingered on a poem taped to the window:
You were once the rain I never chased, but whispered in every prayer…
Kael stared for a long while.
Rain dampened his shoulders.
"So strange… why does this feel familiar?"
He walked away, leaving behind footprints slowly erased by the rain that never truly stopped.
And behind the stone window, Aerish kept writing.
And the rain like a love without a voice kept falling,
soft,
deep,
endless.
---