Chapter 50: The Sky Between Us
The days after Anya left Oriana's apartment moved slower than usual.
Not in the way lazy Sundays feel slow, but in the way waiting does.
That kind of slow where the minutes are too loud and the sky changes color too quickly, like the world is moving forward and you're still standing still, holding onto something invisible.
Anya tried to stay grounded.
She kept her routine—woke early, ate toast she didn't taste, smiled at people she barely remembered greeting. But there was a strange quiet to her days now, a pause between everything, like every breath was waiting for Oriana's name.
And though her phone buzzed with messages—tiny stars on a glowing screen—they weren't the same as Oriana's voice. They weren't the warmth of fingers brushing hers or the way Oriana smiled with her whole soul.
Still, Anya didn't complain.
Not even when her schedule stretched, when school responsibilities piled on, or when she found herself staring out the window with no memory of how long she'd been doing it.
Because she knew what it meant to have something worth missing.
Oriana, too, moved through her own quiet rhythm.
She watered the plants in the balcony each morning, setting down the small mug she'd always made tea in when Anya was there. Her fingers grazed the rim of the cup like they were searching for something still hidden in its warmth.
She thought of Anya constantly.
Of how she slept—curled on her side like she was protecting something tender. Of how she spoke—always just one sentence away from laughter, one thought away from poetry.
But most of all, she thought of Anya's eyes.
The way they asked for love without demanding it.
The way they searched for something they thought they didn't deserve—and the way they began to believe, slowly, that maybe they did.
Oriana missed her so much that sometimes she whispered things out loud just to feel the weight of her name in the room.
"Anya," she would say into the empty air.
As if the syllables alone could summon her.
Three days passed.
Then four.
Their messages became longer—little windows into each other's days.
Oriana sent photos of the sky at dusk, of her breakfast arranged like art, of poems scribbled on the backs of receipts. Anya replied with voice notes—half-whispers recorded late at night under blankets, where she said things like:
"I keep thinking about your hand on my shoulder. How it felt like home."
And:
"Does it rain where you are? Because it hasn't here. Not once. Like even the clouds are waiting for you."
There was no promise of seeing each other soon, not because they didn't want to, but because life—quiet, inconvenient, necessary life—had wrapped itself around them like a storm that hadn't yet passed.
But that didn't stop the love from blooming.
In fact, it made it stronger.
Like wildflowers in cracked pavement.
On the fifth day, Oriana's mother returned early from her trip.
It was a quiet reunion—polite, soft—but Oriana couldn't help noticing how quickly her mother's eyes searched the apartment.
"Someone was here," her mother said casually, placing her bag on the table.
Oriana smiled to herself. "Yes."
Her mother looked at her closely. "And you're different."
"Am I?"
"Not louder. Just… steadier. Like the wind isn't pushing you around anymore."
Oriana didn't say anything. But later that evening, as she cleaned the two tea mugs she hadn't yet washed, she whispered, "She's the reason."
That night, Anya couldn't sleep.
The moonlight on her ceiling looked like a language she didn't know how to read. Her chest ached—not in a painful way, but in that strange, tender way when your body holds too much feeling and doesn't know what to do with it.
She sat up and reached for her phone.
Her thumb hovered over Oriana's contact.
Then she called.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then Oriana picked up, breathless. "Anya?"
"I didn't wake you, did I?"
"No." Oriana's voice was laced with warmth, like candlelight. "I couldn't sleep either."
There was a pause. Then Anya said softly, "Can I just hear you breathe for a little while?"
And Oriana didn't laugh or tease. She simply said, "Yes."
So for a long time, they didn't speak.
They just listened.
Two heartbeats apart. One sky away.
When Anya finally spoke again, her voice trembled a little. "Do you ever get scared that this… whatever we're building… will fade?"
Oriana was quiet, then asked, "Do you remember the first time you looked up at the stars and realized how small you were?"
"Yes."
"And did that make the stars disappear?"
"No."
"That's us," Oriana whispered. "Small. Sometimes afraid. But we're still here. Still bright."
Anya closed her eyes. "I needed to hear that."
"I need to say it," Oriana replied. "To you. Every day, if you'll let me."
The sixth day came with heavy clouds.
Not just outside—but inside Anya's heart.
It was the kind of morning where even coffee couldn't chase the shadows away. She moved through her classes like a ghost, laughed at things she didn't hear, smiled with eyes that had forgotten how.
At lunch, she sat alone beneath the jacaranda tree, head resting against the rough bark, staring at nothing.
And then her phone buzzed.
A voice note.
From Oriana.
Anya pressed play, holding the phone to her ear like it was sacred.
"I don't have anything clever to say," Oriana's voice murmured. "No quotes or metaphors. Just this—I love you. In the kind of way that doesn't need an occasion. Just a moment. And this is one."
Anya smiled.
The kind of smile that lived in the corners of the mouth, soft and sad and full of gratitude.
She replied with a whisper of her own:
"I love you too. In every quiet moment I don't know what to say."
By the seventh day, the rain finally came.
It wasn't sudden.
It built slowly, the clouds growing thick and silver, the wind curling around corners like something searching for warmth.
And by late afternoon, the first drops began to fall.
Oriana stood by her window, watching the rooftops darken with wetness, listening to the steady rhythm of water against glass.
She thought of Anya immediately.
So she wrote something down on a piece of paper, folded it carefully, and slid it into the small envelope she kept for thoughts that felt too heavy for text.
That evening, she mailed it.
No explanation.
Just the words:
"The sky waited. Just like me."
Anya received it two days later.
It was tucked between bills and advertisements, a small white envelope with Oriana's handwriting—soft, slanted, familiar.
She opened it with shaking fingers.
When she read the note, she held it to her chest like something breathing.
And for a moment, she cried.
Not because she was sad.
But because she realized something—
Love wasn't always loud.
Sometimes it was paper.
Sometimes it was silence on the phone.
Sometimes it was the way someone looked at you like you were a poem they'd been trying to remember all their life.
That night, Anya wrote something back.
She didn't send it right away.
But she folded it with care, and pressed it between the pages of her journal.
It read:
"Even when we're apart, you're still the closest thing to home I've ever known."
And under it, just two more words:
"Wait for me."