Chapter 48: When the Rain Waited for Her
The rain had begun falling just as Anya stepped off the last bus. It wasn't the hard kind that drenched everything in minutes—it was gentler, like someone whispering a secret to the earth. It touched the sidewalks with small sighs, slicking the streetlights into glistening halos. She pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders and walked faster, her shoes clicking softly along the path that led to Oriana's apartment.
It was strange, she thought, how the rain always made her feel like she was walking into a memory—not quite the present, not quite the past. Just something quietly eternal.
She reached the gate and paused. The apartment light on the third floor was on.
That meant Oriana was still awake.
Anya's heart stirred, in that quiet way it always did when she thought of Oriana not as an idea but as a person—real, flawed, radiant. The kind of person who said thank you to flowers and made tea like she was stirring warmth into the air.
The intercom crackled when she pressed the button, and she didn't even have to speak before Oriana's voice came through, soft and unmistakably warm:
"Come up."
And that was all.
The door buzzed open and Anya climbed the familiar stairs. Every step felt like she was returning to something—herself, maybe.
Oriana opened the door before she even knocked. She stood barefoot in an oversized t-shirt that draped past her thighs, her hair loose and soft around her face like twilight. The smell of chamomile and honey clung to the warm air inside.
"I was hoping you'd come," Oriana said.
"I was hoping you'd want me to."
Their voices barely rose above a whisper. As though the moment would shatter if either of them got too loud.
Anya stepped in, toeing off her wet shoes by the door. Oriana handed her a towel, and she took it, fingers brushing—brief, like the first spark of a match.
"I was just about to make more tea," Oriana said, padding back into the kitchen.
Anya followed, watching her from the doorway. "You always drink tea before bed?"
"No," Oriana said, looking over her shoulder. "Only when I want to stay awake."
Anya smiled, a slow, honest thing. "So you want to stay awake tonight?"
"Only if you're here."
There it was again—that soft weightless pull that only Oriana could give her. Not a jolt, not a fire. A gravity. A steady knowing that made her want to stand still.
They sat on the floor beside the coffee table, legs tucked beneath them, the mugs between their palms steaming softly. Rain pattered against the windows like a rhythm meant only for them.
"What did you do today?" Oriana asked, her voice warm enough to melt through the spaces Anya still kept guarded.
"Thought of you," Anya said, without hiding.
Oriana's eyes lifted to meet hers. "Yeah?"
"I do, a lot." Anya looked into her mug, then up again. "You're not just… someone I think about when I miss you. You're someone I think about when I don't know who I am."
Oriana didn't respond right away. She reached over, brushing Anya's damp bangs aside with gentle fingers. Her thumb lingered at Anya's temple. "You know who you are more than you think. You just keep handing little pieces of yourself to everyone else."
"And you?" Anya whispered.
"I don't take. You give."
Their hands found each other somewhere between the table and the silence. Oriana's was warm, small, but full of a quiet steadiness that Anya wanted to believe in.
The city beyond the window blurred in streaks of wet light. The thunder didn't come loud tonight—just distant murmurs, like the sky was humming them a lullaby.
Anya placed her mug down and turned toward Oriana fully, drawing one leg under the other.
"I feel like…" she hesitated, unsure how to say it.
"Like what?" Oriana leaned in.
"Like I'm never really anywhere when I'm not with you."
A hush passed between them. No words dared interrupt.
Then Oriana leaned closer. "And where do you go when you're with me?"
"Here," Anya said. "Only here."
Oriana's hand lifted slowly, traced a line across Anya's cheek with the back of her fingers. "I don't want to be your escape, Anya."
"You're not," she said quickly. "You're not the place I run to. You're the reason I stop running."
Oriana's lips parted, her breath catching with something that trembled but didn't break. "Say it again," she asked softly.
"You're the reason I stop running."
It was then—without drama, without grand orchestration—that their lips met.
The kiss was shy at first. A question, not an answer. But as they leaned in further, mouths moving with slow grace, it grew into something that felt like coming home barefoot in the rain, like exhaling after holding your breath for years. Their foreheads stayed touching after, and neither spoke for a long while.
Oriana smiled against her. "Do you ever think about how long we've waited for this?"
"I think about how long it'll last."
"It will," Oriana said, threading their fingers together again. "If we choose each other, every day. Even the ugly ones."
"Even when I get scared and disappear?"
"I'll find you," she said. "But next time, leave the door unlocked."
Anya let out a breath that wasn't quite laughter, wasn't quite relief. She leaned her head on Oriana's shoulder and listened to the rain.
It was the kind of peace you didn't try to hold, because it held you instead.
"Tell me something true," Oriana whispered after a while.
Anya considered. "When I was younger, I used to think I'd never be enough for anyone."
Oriana's fingers moved gently in her hair. "You don't have to be anything but yourself. And I'll still choose you."
Anya closed her eyes. "Tell me something true?"
"I used to think I'd never get to love someone like this. Quietly. Fully."
Anya turned her face up. "But you do?"
"I do."
The rain outside picked up again, but neither of them noticed. Or cared. The thunder could've roared, the world could've turned upside down, and still they would have been exactly where they belonged—on the floor, hands clasped, hearts humming soft truths into each other's skin.
At some point, the tea cooled.
They lay back against the rug, side by side, fingers still entwined. The ceiling light flickered once and went out, but the room stayed soft in the glow from outside. Moonlight broken by droplets. A dream made real.
"I used to think love would arrive loudly," Anya said.
"And now?"
"Now I know it sometimes tiptoes in during the rain."
Oriana smiled, half-asleep. "Stay the night?"
Anya turned to her. "Always."
She pulled the blanket down from the couch and tucked it around both of them. They lay there, tangled in quiet warmth, no longer afraid of the silence.
And in that still, perfect moment, Anya thought—
Maybe the rain had waited for her, too.