Chapter 4: The Distance That Didn't Leave
The next morning, the light had changed.
Not dramatically. Not like in stories where the sun bursts through after a storm or shadows swallow the sky. It was subtler than that. The kind of shift only someone paying close attention might notice.
Anya noticed.
She always noticed.
Oriana was quiet that morning—not the soft quiet that Anya had grown used to, but a quieter kind. The sort that came from somewhere deeper. Her voice was there, her eyes were there, her hand still reached for Anya's when they sat beneath the banyan tree after class… but something had pulled slightly back.
Not away.
Just… inside.
"I had a dream," Oriana said.
Anya looked up from her sketchbook. "What kind?"
"The kind that doesn't feel like a dream," Oriana said, running her thumb along the edge of the bench. "It felt like memory. Like something I lived once, but forgot."
"Were you alone in it?"
Oriana nodded slowly. "I think I was waiting. For someone who didn't come."
Anya's pencil stopped. "Was it me?"
"No," Oriana said softly. "But it felt like… before you. Like a version of me that hadn't met you yet. And I didn't like her."
"Why not?"
Oriana didn't answer at first. She pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned into the shade.
"Because she never smiled," she said. "Not even once."
Anya reached across the small space between them and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind Oriana's ear. "You smile now."
Oriana's eyes met hers. And for a moment, the silence between them was sweet again. Whole.
But the weight didn't leave.
That evening, Anya wandered alone.
Oriana had said she needed to go home early, that her mother wasn't feeling well. Anya believed her. Oriana never lied, not anymore.
Still, something in her chest ached—not because she didn't trust Oriana, but because she didn't trust time.
Time had a way of thinning things. Of peeling people apart layer by layer until only the outline remained. And Anya had lost too many outlines already.
She found herself back at the temple—the one with the cracked white steps and the cat that always lounged in the same spot near the prayer wheel. She sat there, watching the sky darken.
And she missed Oriana.
Not in the obvious way.
But in the quiet, creeping way.
The kind of missing that grows beneath your ribs, pressing against your lungs until even breathing feels like something stolen.
The next day, Oriana wore her hair differently.
Tied up, loosely, like she didn't want to be seen fully. Or maybe didn't want to see herself.
She smiled when she saw Anya. Said hello. Gave her a soft touch on the arm.
But she didn't sit beside her.
She sat across.
"Did something happen?" Anya asked gently.
Oriana shook her head. "No. Not really."
"That doesn't sound true."
"It's just… noise," Oriana said. "In my head. The usual."
Anya tilted her head. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Oriana whispered. "I want to forget it."
Anya nodded, though her hands gripped the sketchbook tightly.
Because she knew.
She knew how it started—this kind of distance. First it was the silence. Then the slow retreat behind words. Then one day, a goodbye spoken so softly it could be mistaken for a breath.
She wouldn't let it happen.
Not with Oriana.
"Let's go somewhere," Anya said two days later.
It was sudden. A burst of energy. A decision made before fear could catch up.
Oriana raised an eyebrow. "Where?"
"Somewhere the city can't reach us."
Oriana smiled faintly. "That sounds like a dream."
"Good," Anya said. "Because I want to dream with you."
They left the next morning on a bus that wheezed like an old man but still carried them forward. They passed rice fields still slick with water, roadside stalls stacked with dragonfruit and incense, hills that folded into one another like the backs of sleeping animals.
Anya didn't speak much.
Oriana didn't either.
But when the wind came through the open bus window and caught Oriana's hair, Anya smiled to herself.
She knew this was right.
The town was small. Wooden houses with corrugated roofs. A river that curved lazily through the valley. Chickens wandered the roads like they owned them. And the air smelled like wet grass and turmeric.
They stayed in a guesthouse run by a woman who wore her grey hair in a long braid and spoke with a voice like velvet.
"You're welcome here," she said. "Whatever you're running from, leave it at the steps."
Anya glanced at Oriana.
Oriana just nodded.
They left their bags and went to the river.
The water was cold. Clean. They dipped their feet in and watched the mountains reflect back in soft ripples.
"I feel lighter here," Oriana said.
"Maybe you left something behind," Anya replied.
"I hope so."
They stayed like that for a long time, shoulders touching, feet in the water.
And slowly, the quiet turned warm again.
That night, under a sky unspoiled by city lights, Oriana finally said it.
"I was scared I'd lose you."
Anya turned to look at her.
"You were pulling away."
"I was," Oriana admitted. "But not because I stopped feeling something. Because I started feeling too much."
Anya waited.
"I've never loved anyone before," Oriana said. "Not like this. Not where it could matter. Not where I'd have to give them the parts of me that still hurt."
Anya reached out, took Oriana's hand. "I don't want your perfect parts."
Oriana blinked.
"I want the truth of you," Anya whispered. "Even when it's bruised. Even when it's scared."
There was a long pause.
Then Oriana exhaled.
And when she leaned in, her forehead resting against Anya's, the night didn't need words anymore.
Because this time, Oriana wasn't just staying.
She was choosing to stay.
They returned three days later.
The city welcomed them back with heat and noise and the same old rhythms. But something had shifted.
The distance that once hovered like a ghost between them was gone.
Not erased—but acknowledged.
And that was enough.
Anya drew again.
This time, she didn't draw from memory.
She sat across from Oriana as the late sun slid through the trees, and she sketched her slowly—line by line, shadow by shadow.
And Oriana let her.
No hiding.
No pretending.
Just herself.
When the drawing was finished, Anya held it up.
Oriana stared at it, then at Anya.
"It looks like someone who's been found," Oriana said.
Anya smiled. "That's because she has."