Chapter 37: The Scent of Your Name in the Rain
Morning arrived gently, as if the sky itself was still reluctant to wake. The light was soft and golden, filtering through the sheer curtains in Oriana's room. Outside, birds sang with shy voices, their melody threading through the silence like distant temple bells.
Anya woke slowly.
Her hand instinctively reached out and found Oriana's.
Still here.
Still warm.
Still real.
She turned her head and saw Oriana sleeping—her features softened by slumber, her chest rising and falling with a rhythm that Anya now knew by heart. The sight of her, so vulnerable, so unguarded, made something fragile and sacred bloom within Anya's chest.
She didn't want to move. Not even to blink.
Just… this.
Just her.
Her fingers brushed lightly against Oriana's knuckles, and with the faintest sigh, Oriana stirred, eyes fluttering open like butterflies just after rain.
"You're staring again," she murmured, voice husky and laced with sleep.
Anya smiled. "Can you blame me?"
Oriana yawned and rolled onto her side, her hand cupping Anya's cheek. "You're dangerously sweet in the morning."
"You bring it out of me."
They shared a kiss—soft and slow, the kind that didn't ask for anything but gave everything.
Oriana buried her face against Anya's neck. "Let's never leave this bed."
"Ever?"
"Ever."
"But what about food?"
Oriana groaned dramatically. "You and your stomach. Fine. We'll leave only for breakfast."
They laughed into each other's skin, their bodies tangled like thread that had no beginning or end.
But eventually, hunger did pull them from the warmth of sheets. They took their time dressing—Anya in one of Oriana's oversized T-shirts, Oriana in soft cotton shorts and a loose braid trailing down her back. There was something impossibly intimate about sharing space like this. The domestic softness of it.
Oriana prepared the rice while Anya fried eggs, both moving in synchrony, a quiet ballet of hands and glances. They talked about nothing in particular—whether rainy days made food taste better, whether the neighbor's cat secretly hated them, whether today felt like a music day or a silence day.
After breakfast, Oriana pulled Anya out onto the small balcony where potted plants leaned sleepily toward the sky. The air was cool and smelled faintly of damp soil and sunlight.
They sat side by side on a rattan mat, knees touching, sipping ginger tea. The world moved gently around them, and for the first time in Anya's life, she wasn't waiting for anything.
Not for the future.
Not for permission.
Not for the other shoe to drop.
She already had everything she wanted, sitting next to her with tea in hand and a smile that felt like a beginning and an ending all at once.
"Tell me something true," Oriana said, turning toward her.
Anya looked down into her cup, steam curling upward like secrets.
"Okay," she said quietly. "I've been writing a poem about you."
Oriana blinked. "Really?"
Anya nodded. "Since the first week I met you."
Oriana's smile was immediate, and then—sincere.
"Can I hear it?"
Anya hesitated, but the way Oriana looked at her—with trust, with joy, with something close to wonder—gave her the courage.
She cleared her throat.
"It's not finished. But…"
She looked up, and her voice grew steadier.
You arrived like dusk, not demanding the sky,
but folding your softness into everything.
I didn't know the weight of silence
until you made it feel like safety.
You, girl of wild starlight,
whose laugh stitched my soul
like thread through torn cloth—
I was never whole before you,
just waiting to remember how to be.
When she finished, Oriana was quiet. Her eyes shone with tears, and for a moment, she said nothing.
Then, in a voice that barely carried, she whispered, "You make me feel like art."
"You are," Anya replied. "You always were."
They sat in silence for a long time after that. Not because they had nothing to say, but because they'd said everything already.
Later in the afternoon, Oriana invited her out for a walk—now that the sky had cleared and the air was thick with that post-rain fragrance, rich and earthy.
They strolled through narrow alleyways filled with flowering vines and dripping leaves. Street vendors returned to their corners, fanning charcoal flames beneath woks and offering sweet roasted bananas wrapped in sticky rice. Children ran barefoot through puddles, shrieking with joy, and elders sat on stools drinking warm tea, nodding politely as the girls passed.
Anya slipped her hand into Oriana's.
It still made her heart race.
Every time.
"Do you want to go somewhere special?" Oriana asked, her voice low.
Anya nodded. "Anywhere with you is special."
They ended up at an old bookstore Oriana used to visit with her mother when she was little. It was tucked between two coffee shops, its wooden sign faded but charming, with the smell of old paper seeping out from its doorway.
Inside, it was a world of quiet and stories. Dust motes floated in sunlight like forgotten dreams. The bookshelves reached to the ceiling, stacked not only with novels but with little objects—figurines, dried flowers, faded photographs.
Oriana led her to the poetry section and knelt, pulling out a thin blue volume with a golden spine.
"This one," she said. "This is the first poem I ever cried to."
She opened the book carefully, flipping to a page marked with a dried rose petal.
And then she read.
If love is a thread,
let me knot it gently into your bones.
If I forget the world,
let it be for your name on my lips.
Her voice trembled, just a little, but she didn't stop reading. Anya listened as if the poem were about them, as if the lines had waited all these years just to fall into their hands.
Afterward, Anya leaned close and whispered, "I think we were written in someone's poem before we were born."
"Maybe," Oriana said. "But now we're writing our own."
They bought the book and walked hand-in-hand back home. On the way, they stopped at a street corner where an old man was selling paper lanterns. Anya picked one—a soft pink one shaped like a heart—and Oriana lit it with careful fingers.
"Make a wish," the vendor said.
They held the lantern together.
Anya whispered something into the flame.
Oriana did too.
Then they released it into the sky, watching it rise above the rooftops, glowing brighter and smaller until it was nothing but a memory of light.
"I won't ask what you wished for," Anya said.
"But I'll tell you," Oriana replied. "I wished for you. To stay."
Anya swallowed, her voice thick. "Mine was the same."
And in that moment, they weren't just girls in love.
They were something older, something timeless.
Two hearts beating in sync beneath a sky that had always known they'd find each other.