Summer returned quietly.
It arrived in small, gradual ways—the smell of salt in the air, the longer evenings, the way the sea carried light farther than before.
Clara spent most mornings walking along the harbor before work.
The city felt lighter at that hour, as if it hadn’t yet remembered its own weight.
She’d bring her coffee in a paper cup and watch the boats drift out, slow and certain.
Sometimes, she thought about how much her life had narrowed, and how that narrowing had somehow made it wider.
It wasn’t that she needed less.
It was that she’d learned what was worth keeping.
Her students asked her one day, “Do you still write about love?”
Clara smiled. “Always. Just not the kind that needs to be chased.”
The class laughed, but she meant it.
Love, to her now, was less about reaching and more about staying.
Less about longing and more about recognition.
It had become a rhythm—the quiet presence of something that never really left.
That evening, she went to Mae’s new apartment for dinner.
Theo was there too, cooking badly, as usual.
The air was filled with burnt garlic and laughter.
Mae poured wine and said, “So, philosopher of feelings, how’s the next book?”
Clara laughed. “Slower than the last one. But I think I like it better that way.”
Theo pointed his spoon at her. “You’re the only person I know who makes calm sound dramatic.”
“That’s because calm *is* dramatic,” she said. “You just don’t notice until you survive the chaos.”
They toasted to that, wine glasses clinking against the sound of rain starting outside.
Later that night, walking home, Clara passed the pier again.
The city lights stretched over the water, long ribbons of gold and silver.
It reminded her of something Adrian once said—how the quiet between people can be the loudest proof of care.
She stopped for a moment, watching the reflections ripple.
Somewhere across that same sea, she imagined him hearing the same rain, maybe remembering, maybe just existing.
It didn’t hurt.
It didn’t ache.
It just felt… continuous.
Like light.
Like something that didn’t end, but kept moving through time,
carried softly between windows,
between people,
between everything that ever tried to last.
The next morning, the sunlight woke her before the alarm did.
It filled the room slowly, patient as breath.
She lay there for a while, listening—to the hum of the city, to the faint sound of piano keys across the street.
When she finally got up, she didn’t rush.
The kettle took its time to boil; the toast browned unevenly.
Everything ordinary felt deliberate, as if the world had quietly agreed to move at her pace.
She sat by the window, notebook open, pen resting between her fingers.
The words came easy that morning—not dramatic, not heavy.
They felt like sunlight itself, steady and kind.
> We don’t lose people.
> We carry them forward,
> in the quiet we’ve learned to live inside.
She looked at the sentence for a long time.
Then she smiled and wrote another.
> And maybe that’s what love becomes—
> not what fills the silence,
> but what stays after the noise.
The day unfolded the way most of them did—slowly, gently.
Emails, coffee, laughter from a colleague’s desk.
Outside, children ran through puddles leftover from last night’s rain.
It wasn’t an extraordinary day, and maybe that’s why it mattered.
In the afternoon, she walked back to the pier.
A group of tourists were taking photos, their laughter rising against the wind.
The sea was calm, almost glasslike.
She leaned on the railing, feeling the breeze press against her sleeves.
Her phone buzzed—a new email.
**From:** Adrian Cole
**Subject:** *Light travels farther over water.*
> Saw the sun break after three straight days of rain.
> Thought of Elyndra.
> Thought of you.
>
> Hope you’re still walking by the water.
> –A
She read it twice, then looked out at the horizon.
The sunlight glittered across the surface, stretching wider, brighter.
She didn’t reply.
She didn’t need to.
Because some things didn’t need to circle back.
They just kept shining, long after you stopped looking.
Clara closed her eyes for a moment, letting the wind tangle her hair, the light settle on her face.
Then she whispered, “Still walking.”
And somewhere, far away but not too far,
the same light touched another window,
and kept moving—
the longest light,
the one that never really leaves.
Comments (0)
See all