Chapter 21: Where Her Voice Rests
The evening was made of lavender.
Not the color, exactly. But the feeling of it—the hush before nightfall, when the day holds its breath and everything softens. The wind was low and slow, brushing gently across the wooden floor where Anya sat cross-legged, folding paper into little birds.
Oriana watched from the doorway.
She hadn't said anything for a long while. Not since they'd returned from the café, walking in silence most of the way, fingers brushing but never fully interlocked.
Anya had noticed. The shift. The slight dimming in Oriana's eyes. Not sadness—something older. Like a memory that wouldn't let go.
Now, Oriana stood barefoot in the hallway, backlit by fading sunlight, her eyes lost somewhere behind the quiet.
Anya didn't rush.
Instead, she placed another paper bird onto the low table—its wings folded mid-flight—and patted the cushion beside her.
"You don't have to talk," she said softly. "But you don't have to be alone, either."
Oriana stepped into the room.
Each footfall was deliberate. Each breath careful, like the air might crack if she moved too quickly. She sat down slowly, her back to the wall, legs pulled in close.
"I used to hum when I couldn't speak," she said suddenly, voice barely above a whisper.
Anya didn't move.
Oriana continued, eyes on the floor. "When I was younger… if I was scared, or tired, or—angry. I couldn't get the words out. Not even if I tried. My throat would close. Like something inside me had locked the door."
Anya listened.
The kind of listening that didn't interrupt or demand. The kind that made space for silence to exist without shame.
"So I'd hum," Oriana went on. "Just one note. Again and again. It was stupid, but it helped. It felt like I was still here. Still… making sound, even if I couldn't say why I hurt."
Anya reached forward, slowly, and placed her hand on Oriana's.
"I don't think that's stupid," she said. "I think it's brave."
Oriana's mouth trembled.
"I haven't told anyone that," she said. "Not even my grandmother."
"You don't have to explain it to me," Anya whispered. "You're allowed to just be."
There was a pause.
Then Oriana asked, "Do you still want to hear me hum?"
Anya smiled, not with her lips but with her eyes.
"Only if it's what your heart needs."
They sat there a while longer.
No words. Just closeness.
And then, like petals falling from a tree no longer afraid of winter, Oriana began to hum.
It was faint.
Barely there.
A single note, soft and steady, trembling but alive.
It wasn't a melody. It didn't need to be.
It was a signal. A pulse. A quiet offering.
And Anya—she didn't speak. She simply closed her eyes and let the sound rest in her chest, like a thread stitching together something fragile.
When Oriana stopped, the silence didn't feel empty anymore.
It felt warm.
Shared.
Later, they sat in the kitchen, drinking warm ginger tea.
The moon hung low through the window, pale and kind, as if it, too, had been listening.
Oriana's fingers curled around her cup.
"I used to hate silence," she said. "It reminded me of being forgotten."
Anya looked at her, soft and steady. "And now?"
"Now it feels different."
Anya didn't press.
So Oriana continued.
"It feels like… if I'm quiet with you, it doesn't mean I've disappeared. It means I'm allowed to stay."
Anya set down her cup.
Then she leaned forward, brushing a loose strand of hair behind Oriana's ear.
"You're not invisible here," she whispered.
Oriana's throat tightened. "Even when I don't know how to be whole?"
"Especially then."
And in that tiny kitchen, with the moon as their only witness, Oriana reached for Anya's hand again.
Not for warmth.
Not even for comfort.
But to feel something real. Something that didn't ask her to be louder, bigger, better.
Just held her as she was.
Quiet.
Present.
Here.
When they returned to the bedroom, Oriana sat on the edge of the bed, looking out the window at the trees that swayed under starlight.
"I wonder if they talk to each other," she said suddenly.
"The trees?"
"Yes. I mean, they've seen everything. Don't you think they whisper to each other? Like, *'She's hurting again tonight.' Or, 'She smiled when she saw her today.'"
Anya sat beside her, wrapping her arms gently around Oriana's waist from behind.
"Maybe they don't whisper," she said. "Maybe they just listen."
Oriana smiled faintly. "Like you?"
Anya kissed her shoulder.
"No. Trees are wiser."
Oriana leaned back into her. "You're the only place my voice doesn't echo."
They fell asleep like that.
Curled together, their foreheads nearly touching, their legs tangled like roots grown in the same patch of soil.
And sometime in the middle of the night, when the world had gone still, and even the wind had settled into its dreams, Anya stirred.
Oriana was humming again.
Just barely.
A single note.
Soft.
And Anya—half-asleep, entirely in love—smiled into the darkness.
Because that sound was no longer a cry for help.
It was something else now.
A lullaby made of healing.