Snow came late that year, as if winter itself had hesitated before finding its way to Willow Creek.  

By the time the first flakes fell, the town had already learned to live in gray.  

Lila watched the snow from her window, sketchbook open but untouched. The air felt heavier, softer. Each sound—the ticking clock, the wind against the glass—seemed distant, like something remembered instead of real.  

It had been weeks since the last tape.  

Sometimes she wondered if he’d stopped sending them. Sometimes she told herself it didn’t matter.  

On the first week of December, a small parcel arrived. Not an envelope this time, but a box, wrapped in newspaper and string. Inside was another cassette, and beneath it, a note.  

The handwriting was uneven, faint, almost unsure.  

> “It’s cold here. Thought you might want to hear what that sounds like.”  

No name, no city, no return address. Just that.  

She played the tape that night.  

The first few seconds were filled with static, then came a low hum—a street musician, maybe, or the sound of wind moving through buildings. Then the guitar, slow, bare, unpolished.  

At the end, his voice:  

> “You used to say silence had colors. I think I finally understand what you meant.”  

She closed her eyes. For a moment, it felt like the room had a heartbeat.  

Lila sat there for hours, letting the tape spin out until it clicked, until silence filled the space again. Then she reached for her pencil.  

That night she drew the snow outside, falling in lines instead of flakes, like rain pretending to be something else.  

Days passed quietly.  

The world turned white, then silver, then pale again.  

Sometimes Jake called from school, his voice bright and distant.  

“Mom says you’re still painting.”  

“Drawing,” she corrected.  

“Same thing.”  

“Not really.”  

He laughed. “You should come visit.”  

“Maybe.”  

She never did.  

Noah’s last tape stayed on her desk.  

She didn’t listen to it again. She didn’t have to.  

In the city, he worked longer hours, playing background guitar for other people’s songs. The studio was warm, but outside the air bit at his hands, turning his fingers red and stiff.  

Sometimes he’d pass a café window and see his own reflection, guitar case on his back, and think of the way she used to look at him—not directly, but as if her eyes had already been there before he noticed.  

He wrote songs at night. Most he never finished. Some didn’t need to be.  

One evening he came home to find an envelope under his door.  

No address, just his name. Inside: a small piece of paper with graphite smudges. The drawing showed two mugs on a table, steam rising, one cup half full, the other untouched.  

He smiled. She had found a way to reach him again.  

He set the drawing on his nightstand and recorded another tape. This one had no words—just a melody that drifted and folded in on itself, like breath in winter air.  

He mailed it the next morning before the post office opened.  

In Willow Creek, snow covered the mailbox by the time it arrived. Lila brushed it clean with her sleeve and carried the tape inside.  

She didn’t play it right away. Instead, she lit the fire, poured a cup of tea, and waited until the room grew warm enough to hold the sound.  

The music began quietly, like footsteps through snow. Each note fell slow and deliberate, as if afraid to break something.  

Halfway through, she realized he wasn’t playing alone. Another guitar, faint but steady, moved underneath—soft harmony, like a voice answering from far away.  

She wondered if he had played both parts, or if someone else had been there. The thought hurt more than she expected.  

The tape ended. She pressed rewind, but this time, she didn’t play it again.  

Instead, she opened her window. The air rushed in, cold and sharp. The snow outside glowed blue beneath the porch light.  

She whispered, “You don’t have to come back.”  

It wasn’t a wish. It was something closer to mercy.  

Weeks slipped by.  

Christmas lights went up around town. The church bell rang softer than she remembered.  

On Christmas morning, she left a package at the post office: a sketch rolled carefully inside a cardboard tube. No address, no message, just the same initials she’d always used.  

In the city, the package took days to find him. When it did, he opened it on New Year’s Eve. Inside—charcoal dust, a faint scent of pine, and the drawing of two figures sitting apart on a frozen lake, their reflections touching even when they didn’t.  

He stared at it for a long time. Then he placed it against the wall, right beside the horizon line she’d sent months ago.  

Outside, fireworks cracked the air open.  

He turned off the lights and sat in the glow, the drawing catching the brief flashes of color.  

The year ended quietly, not with noise but with breath.  

In Willow Creek, the same fireworks flickered faintly above the trees.  

Lila stood by the window, watching until the sky went dark again.  

On the table, the tape player waited. She reached out and pressed play.  

The same song filled the room. This time, she hummed along.  

The sound was small, but it was enough.