Night came without ceremony. The sky over Willow Creek was clean and empty, a surface that refused reflection. The rain had left everything too quiet; even the crickets waited before beginning.
Lila sat on the porch steps, a blanket over her knees. The air carried the faint scent of metal and wood—what remained after departure. The porch light hummed softly, circling moths tracing the same orbit until they forgot why they began.
The truck was gone. The road beyond the yard held only the echo of its tires, already fading into something smaller than sound.
She looked at the space it left, the way one looks at an empty frame: aware of what used to fit there.
Inside, the house had gone still. The windows, cleaned by the storm, reflected too clearly. She could see herself moving through each room like a ghost that hadn’t learned haunting yet.
She stopped in front of the table. The mug he’d used sat where he’d left it, a half-ring of coffee dried at the rim. She traced it with her finger, then wiped it clean.
When she reached the desk upstairs, the sketchbook lay open, the pencil where she’d dropped it. The page showed the light across the sheets, unfinished. She added one more line, then stopped.
In the silence that followed, she could hear the river. It sounded closer than it was.
She remembered what he’d said that morning: *Silence has weight after a promise.*
Now it filled the room.
The phone on the dresser buzzed once, startling her. A message, unsent hours ago, arrived late.
**[Noah]: “Did the wind ever stop?”**
She typed, deleted, typed again. Finally she wrote:
**“It changed direction.”**
Then turned the phone face down.
The clock ticked. The night deepened without meaning to.
She walked to the window and opened it wider. Air slipped in, cold enough to sting.
The sheets outside moved faintly, though there was no wind.
She whispered, “It’s still here.”
And for a moment, she could almost believe the house was breathing.
Dawn came pale, carrying no color of its own. The river shimmered under the faint light, a line of motion against the still fields.
Lila hadn’t slept. The sheets beside her were cool, smooth from where no one had turned. She lay for a moment watching the ceiling change from gray to white.
When she rose, the floor creaked, the same way it had every morning since she’d come back. Familiarity had a rhythm—it comforted and hurt in equal measure.
She made coffee. The sound of it percolating filled the kitchen like small talk she didn’t have to answer. Outside, the porch light flickered once, though the sun was already up.
On the table sat her sketchbook, still open from the night before. The last drawing showed only outlines, a suggestion of movement left unfinished.
She touched the page. The graphite came off faintly on her skin. She didn’t wipe it away.
A knock at the door startled her.
When she opened it, the mail carrier stood there, hat damp with early dew. “Morning, Ms. Bennett. You’ve got something.”
He handed her a small envelope, handwriting uneven and familiar. The postmark was from two days ago—before the flood, before he’d stayed.
She thanked him, waited until the footsteps faded, then closed the door.
At the table, she turned the envelope over twice before opening it. Inside was a single page.
*Lila,*
*If you find this, it means I didn’t know how to say goodbye without writing it down first. You always said words were easier to ruin once they were spoken. So I’m writing them instead.*
*There’s a road past the bend that never stays dry. I think I like it because it keeps me honest. Every time it floods, it reminds me that I don’t get to keep everything I cross.*
*If the rain forgets, maybe that’s its mercy. I hope you learn to forget me the same way—not because it’s easy, but because it lets you breathe.*
*— N.*
She read it twice, then folded it carefully along the crease. The paper trembled slightly, as if it still carried his voice.
For a long time, she did nothing.
The coffee cooled. The house settled into its morning noises—pipes, birds, the low hum of the refrigerator. The world moved, indifferent and intact.
Finally, she picked up a pencil and turned to the next page in the sketchbook.
At the top she wrote: *Things we tried to keep.*
Beneath it, she drew the bend in the road, the faint shimmer of water across it, the ghost of a truck in the distance.
When she finished, she closed the book and placed it under the window where the light would fall.
Then she opened the door and stepped onto the porch.
The air smelled of wet wood and something sweet she couldn’t name. The light touched the grass, and the river answered with its quiet shine.
Lila breathed in, steady, and let the morning fill the space where his voice had been.
It didn’t hurt as much as she expected.
It only felt full.
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