Morning arrived washed and quiet. The storm had cleaned the air, leaving the town sharp at the edges—the rooftops rinsed, the trees outlined in dark green. Lila woke before the clock, still hearing the sound of rain that was no longer there.

The light through the open window was colorless but kind. Her sketches hung motionless now, each one sealed by dryness, the graphite darkened from humidity. She sat up and let her feet find the cool floor.

Downstairs, Jake was making coffee. The smell wound through the hall. She heard the scrape of a chair, the low hum of a local radio station switching between static and morning news.

She came down in silence.

He looked up, handed her a mug. “You slept?”

“A little.”

“You keep the window open all night?”

“Couldn’t close it.”

Jake nodded, not pressing. “Forecast says it’ll clear for a few days.”

He was half-listening to the radio. A new single was playing—a male voice, low and hesitant, a roughness at the edge like gravel. Lila froze halfway to her seat. The melody was familiar; the phrasing slower, but she recognized the breath behind it.

Jake noticed. “That him?”

She nodded. Her fingers tightened around the mug. The warmth didn’t reach her skin.

The announcer’s voice faded in: “New from Noah Blake, recorded live in Denver last week. *Bridges in Summer.*”

It wasn’t a song he’d ever let her hear.

The first verse filled the kitchen—the sound raw, close, the kind that left room for silence. She set the mug down carefully, afraid even the clink might break it. The lyrics were about returning to a place that no longer waited, about light through windows that forgot to close. The same windows she had drawn.

When it ended, Jake reached to turn the dial. “You okay?”

She nodded again, but her eyes were distant, tracing something no one else could see.

By noon she was in town. Main Street steamed from the morning heat, puddles shrinking into mirror patches. She stopped by the post office, the one she used as return address on every envelope she’d never sent. The clerk greeted her by name.

“Still no pickup for you today,” he said.

She smiled faintly. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Her reflection in the glass door looked like someone almost waiting, almost leaving. She pressed a hand to the cool pane before stepping out.

Across the street, a bus idled, engine trembling. For a second, she imagined him there, head against the window, the city behind him fading into light. The thought was so vivid it hurt.

The sound of the engine cut off. The bus stayed empty.

She walked instead to the diner. The same booth near the window, same coffee she never finished. Clara Moen was there already, notebook open, hair damp from humidity. She waved her over.

“You look like a ghost,” Clara said.

“Maybe I am.”

“Big storm last night.”

“Yeah.”

Clara flipped a page. “I heard his song this morning. You?”

Lila looked up sharply. “You listen to that station too?”

“Whole town does. It’s like our weather report now.”

They smiled, both pretending it wasn’t fragile.

Clara leaned in. “You ever think of writing him?”

Lila shook her head. “I’ve written too many things I didn’t send.”

“That’s still something.”

“Not enough.”

The waitress poured refills. Lila stirred hers though she didn’t add sugar. The spoon clicked against the cup—small, steady, the only sound between them.

Through the window, a boy ran across the street with a paper boat, chasing it toward the drain. Lila watched the tiny boat spin, vanish into the water.

Clara followed her gaze. “We all lose something that way.”

Lila smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I just never thought I’d be old enough to understand it.”

They stayed until the afternoon dimmed again, until the sound of rain returned faintly, somewhere beyond the hills.

When she left the diner, the wind had turned. She walked past the bookstore, past the hardware shop where Noah once bought strings for his guitar. Everything looked normal, too normal, as if the town had decided to forget.

At the bridge, she stopped. The boards were slick but solid. Water moved beneath like slow breathing. She leaned on the railing, eyes following the current.

Distance wasn’t measured in miles, she thought, but in how long a voice took to fade.

And his hadn’t yet.

Miles away, the same storm trailed the horizon—faded, but not gone. Noah sat in the corner of a recording room that smelled of dust and cold coffee. The others had left hours ago. Only the red standby light remained, pulsing like a heartbeat too slow.

He replayed the track again. *Bridges in Summer.* The studio speakers caught every breath he had tried to hide. Between the chords, there was a small silence he couldn’t edit out. It was the sound of her absence.

He leaned back, eyes half-closed. In the reflection of the glass partition, his face looked older than he remembered. The kind of tired that came from carrying a story too long.

Ethan poked his head in. “You’re still here?”

“Just listening.”

“Man, it’s two a.m.”

“I know.”

Ethan walked in, tossing him a bottle of water. “You sound like a ghost lately. Even on the live track. You sure you want that version released?”

“It’s the only one that feels honest.”

Ethan hesitated, then nodded. “Suit yourself.” He paused at the door. “She’ll hear it, you know. Everyone will.”

“I hope she does,” Noah said, voice rough. “But not the way I meant it.”

When Ethan left, the silence came back, larger than before. He turned off the main lights, letting only the city’s faint glow leak through the blinds. The storm outside brushed the windows with leftover rain, soft and ghostlike.

He took out the small tape recorder from his bag. The same one he’d carried through tours, through quiet hotel rooms. He pressed record, and spoke into it, quietly.

“Lila… if sound could travel backward, it would find you first.”

He stopped, then laughed once under his breath. “That’s not a song. Just… a thought.”

The tape hissed, waiting.

“I keep thinking about that window. The one by your desk. I used to hate how you left it open, even in winter. Now I get it. You just wanted something to move, when everything else stayed still.”

He clicked stop. The red light dimmed.

For a moment he imagined the porch light from her house—how it must look against the rain, how it probably hadn’t changed. The thought hurt less than before, almost like remembering a dream that no longer asks to be true.

Back in Willow Creek, night returned to quiet.

Jake found Lila on the porch, knees drawn up, sketchbook on her lap. The porch light painted her hair in gold.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He played a show in Denver.”

“I heard.”

They sat without speaking. The sound of frogs from the creek filled the spaces where words didn’t fit.

Finally Jake said, “You know, distance isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s how people learn to breathe.”

Lila looked at him, surprised. “You sound like Mom.”

“She used to tell me that after Dad left. I didn’t understand it until now.”

The porch light flickered once. Fireflies drifted over the grass, slow as thoughts. Lila turned to her brother.

“Do you think I did the right thing? Staying?”

Jake thought for a long time. “You did the brave thing. That’s usually harder.”

She smiled faintly, closed the sketchbook, and leaned her head on the post beside her. The air smelled like wet earth, faint thunder far away.

Jake stood to go. “You’ll figure it out,” he said. “Just… don’t name it yet.”

“What do you mean?”

He grinned. “The distance. Sometimes once you name it, it stops meaning what it was.”

She nodded, watching him disappear into the dim hall.

When she was alone again, she opened the sketchbook to the last page. On the corner of the paper, water had dried into small circles—marks from the storm. She took a pencil and wrote under them:

*Not gone. Just quieter.*

She left the book on the porch table and went inside. The porch light stayed on.

Across miles and static, a recording machine clicked to a stop.

Two hands—one holding a pencil, one holding a tape—rested at the same second, neither knowing.

Outside both windows, the wind shifted.

And for a moment, it felt as if the air between them had learned how to listen.