Chapter 36: A Name the Wind Remembers
There was a hush after the festival.
Not in the literal sense—the school returned to its usual rush of assignments, announcements, and scuffed sneakers running down hallways. But for Anya, something quiet had settled inside her. A kind of stillness she hadn't known before. Like the sound after a bell, still echoing even when the ringing had stopped.
She stood beside the photo exhibit that morning, just before it would be taken down. The classroom smelled of tape, ink, and the faintest trace of Oriana's lavender perfume. Light filtered through the window in soft angles. Her gaze moved over each photo, pausing at the corner where their story rested.
This is how she sees me. This is us.
It was still there. Untouched. No scribbles, no comments. No one had torn it down.
Anya smiled to herself.
"You always look at it like you're not sure it's real," came a familiar voice behind her.
She turned. Oriana stood in the doorway, hair tied up, a book in her hand.
"I'm just surprised it stayed," Anya replied. "I thought someone would try to make it disappear."
"Maybe they couldn't," Oriana said, walking over. "Maybe it mattered more than we thought."
They looked at it together.
"I was thinking," Oriana said after a pause, "we could make our own version. Just for us. Our own scrapbook."
Anya tilted her head. "Like… a journal?"
"Not just that. Something we fill together. Pieces of the year. The days. Notes, drawings, tickets, petals—everything."
Anya's heart fluttered in that soft way it did whenever Oriana included her in something that sounded like forever.
"I'd like that," she said.
Oriana handed her the book she'd been holding. Its cover was blank. Just soft linen and a ribbon around the spine.
"It's ours now."
That afternoon, they took the long way home.
The sky was gray but kind, clouds moving slow above the rooftops. A breeze curled between the houses and trees, lifting strands of Anya's hair, tugging gently at Oriana's sleeve.
"Do you think we'll remember all of this?" Anya asked suddenly, her voice quiet.
"What do you mean?"
"This year. These moments. Us."
Oriana was silent for a while.
"Some things fade," she said. "But I think some things live in you forever. Even when you can't say them out loud anymore. They shape the way you see the world."
They walked a bit more before Anya replied. "Then I want you to shape mine."
Oriana reached out and brushed their fingers together before taking Anya's hand completely.
"You already shaped mine."
Later that week, as the semester crept toward its final weeks, their days became filled with things that marked time: class presentations, final assignments, club recaps. Everyone was already whispering about summer break. About what came next.
But Anya wasn't ready for endings.
Not yet.
She sat in the library one afternoon, tracing the edge of their new scrapbook. She hadn't written in it yet. Neither had Oriana. The blank pages felt almost holy, like snow no one had stepped on.
She opened to the first page and began with a drawing—Oriana's hands resting in her lap, sunlight pooling between her fingers.
At the bottom, she wrote:
"The day didn't need to be perfect. It only needed to have you in it."
On Friday, Oriana pulled her aside after school.
"I want to take you somewhere."
Anya looked up. "Where?"
"You'll see."
They took the train two stops out of town and walked for nearly twenty minutes. It was mostly trees and quiet roads. Anya didn't ask questions. She trusted her.
Eventually, they reached a small wooden bridge over a stream. On the far side stood an old shrine, barely kept, ivy clinging to its edges, moss painting its stones.
"This was my grandmother's favorite place," Oriana said. "She used to say the wind here remembers everything."
Anya looked around.
"It feels… sacred."
"It is," Oriana said softly. "Come on."
They stepped up to the shrine and knelt before it. Oriana reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin, placing it gently into the offering box. Then, almost shyly, she took Anya's hand again.
"Make a wish," she whispered.
Anya didn't close her eyes. She just stared at Oriana and wished for time to be kind to them. For the world to never turn hard enough to wear away what they'd found.
"What did you wish for?" Oriana asked.
"For this to matter forever."
Oriana leaned forward, resting her forehead against Anya's.
"It already does."
On the way back, they didn't talk much. But their silence wasn't empty. It was full of everything that didn't need to be said.
Back at Anya's gate, they stood for a moment, not quite ready to part.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Oriana asked.
Anya nodded. "I'll bring the scrapbook."
"Good," Oriana said, grinning. "I already have something to glue in. It's silly."
"I'll love it."
Oriana smiled. Then she stepped closer and kissed Anya lightly on the cheek. It was brief. Soft. But enough to make Anya want to bottle the whole evening and tuck it under her pillow.
As Oriana walked away, Anya whispered under her breath:
"Thank you for choosing me."
That night, as rain tapped lightly against the windows, Anya opened the scrapbook again.
On the second page, she wrote:
"There are names we say out loud. And names we carry in our hearts.
Yours is both."
Then she slipped in a pressed clover she had picked near the shrine.
The wind whispered through the trees outside.
And maybe, just maybe, it remembered her too.