The rain returned overnight, soft and rhythmic this time—less fury, more lullaby. By morning, it had faded into mist that clung to the windows like breath.
Isla stood outside the studio, tea thermos in hand, coat buttoned to her throat. She didn't knock. She just opened the door and stepped into the warmth like she belonged there.
Because maybe—just maybe—she did.
Lennox was on the floor, cross-legged in a patch of pale light, surrounded by half-open sketchbooks. The radio played something old and jazzy in the background, and the cat had migrated from its blanket to Lennox's lap, looking smug and unbothered.
He glanced up, eyes tired but warm. "You brought bribes again?"
She held up the thermos. "Ginger tea. And one of Viola's walnut scones. Still warm."
He reached out like it was treasure. "You spoil me."
She sat across from him, legs tucked beneath her, careful not to disturb the paper chaos. "You look like you've been in your head all morning."
He hummed. "Yeah. Some days, it's louder in there than I'd like."
He handed her a sketchbook. "Want to see?"
Isla hesitated. Lennox had never offered to show her his unfiltered work before—the pieces not meant for walls or galleries. The ones scribbled in margins, unfinished, raw.
She opened the first page.
A charcoal rendering of a younger Lennox. Sharper jaw, cleaner lines. Eyes wide, uncertain. His mother, maybe, in the background. Barely there. Just a suggestion of hands at his shoulders, gripping too tightly.
She flipped to another page.
A small boy, curled into a corner. Walls cracked. Words written over the sketch in black ink:
Said I was too sensitive.
So I stopped speaking for a while.
Didn't change anything.
Her chest ached.
She flipped again.
The next sketch was of the girl in the mural. Except this version had her back to the viewer—standing at the edge of the sea, hair whipped by wind. But this time… the girl was burning. Flame in place of hair. Smoke for fingers. And beneath her feet, the words:
She only wanted to be warm.
The world called it destruction.
Isla closed the book gently.
And looked up.
"I didn't mean to spy."
"You didn't," Lennox said. "I gave you the pages. That's different."
He reached for the thermos, unscrewed the lid, and took a slow sip. "I never showed these to anyone."
"Why me?"
"Because you don't flinch at the broken things," he said. "You trace them."
That silence between them—their favorite kind—settled back in, warm and familiar.
But then Isla asked, so quietly she almost didn't hear herself:
"Who didn't protect you when you needed it?"
Lennox's fingers went still around the thermos.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then, carefully: "My sister tried. She was the only one who did. But she wasn't enough. She was a kid too. And when she got sick, I had to pretend to be a person I hadn't learned how to be yet."
His voice didn't crack.
But something behind it did.
"I kept painting," he went on. "Because it was the only way to scream without being heard. And I moved back to Dawnmere because... I thought maybe I'd stop feeling like a ghost if I haunted something familiar."
Isla reached out. Slowly. Deliberately.
Not to hold.
But to be there.
And Lennox… let her.
Their fingers touched. Not clasped. Just pressed. Like they were testing the idea of holding on.
And in that moment, Isla realized something:
This boy who painted dreams on forgotten walls?
He wasn't a mystery to be solved.
He was a story written in scars.
And she wanted to read every single page.