Chapter 43: The Letters the Sky Keeps
There were still moments when the world forgot she was missing someone.
Small ones.
Like reaching for her phone to take a photo and almost sending it to Oriana before remembering the signal up north was unreliable. Or laughing at something on the train and turning to the empty seat beside her, halfway expecting her to be there with that crooked smile.
But mostly, the missing had softened.
It no longer hurt like a bruise. It felt more like a scar—tender, but healed over. Something that lived inside her now. A shape, a rhythm, a thread she didn't want to let go of.
Because missing Oriana wasn't just pain anymore.
It was a kind of love that continued.
That morning, Anya received a surprise package.
Not a letter.
A box.
Wrapped in brown paper with unfamiliar stamps along the edge and a neatly written return address in the top corner. Her name on the front, no honorifics. Just: Anya.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she untied the string.
Inside was a folded blanket—soft, pale green flannel lined with tiny white stars. It smelled faintly of cedar and lavender. Tucked inside the folds was a letter.
"My wildflower,
The nights here get colder earlier. I didn't know that. I thought I was used to the wind, but it still slips under the doors and into my bones some days.
I saw this at a local shop and thought of you immediately. The pattern reminded me of the first night we lay beneath the stars, when you said they looked like freckles spilled by accident.
This isn't just a blanket. It's a promise.
That I'm still thinking of you. Still dreaming of your laugh.
And that you're not alone in any room you walk into.
Always,
O."
Anya held the fabric close to her face and inhaled slowly.
Her heart ached and fluttered at once.
She stood and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, walking to the window where the sun spilled across the tatami. The light touched her face like it recognized something.
She whispered into it: "Thank you."
The blanket became part of her daily rhythm.
She'd drape it around herself in the evenings while sketching. She wore it while writing her replies, sipping hot tea with both hands cupped around the mug like Oriana used to. It reminded her not just of Oriana, but of being loved.
The second scrapbook began to bloom.
She pressed an empty tea sachet next to a sketch of the blanket. Above it, she wrote:
"You warmed me in ways no season could."
That weekend, she visited the library again.
It was raining—gentle, soft, the kind that barely made a sound against the umbrella but soaked your sleeves anyway.
Anya sat by the back window in their favorite seat, the second scrapbook open beside her, raindrops tapping rhythmically against the glass.
She wasn't reading.
Just listening.
The hush of pages being turned. The occasional squeak of someone's shoe against the tile. The breathing of a town wrapped in slow weather.
This, she thought, is a kind of love too.
Quiet. Wordless. Constant.
And for a moment, she imagined Oriana sitting across from her, one leg tucked under the other, biting the cap of her pen like always.
Anya smiled softly, reached into her pencil case, and began to draw her from memory.
She didn't need a photo.
She had everything already etched into her.
When she got home, there was another letter waiting.
This one had a polaroid attached to it—Oriana, bundled in a thick scarf, standing in front of a bus stop, surrounded by maple trees that had turned deep scarlet. Her eyes were squinting from the wind, but she was smiling.
On the back of the photo, in small, careful handwriting:
"Waiting to come back to you."
And beneath it, the letter:
"Anya,
I started a notebook too. Not as pretty as yours. Not even organized. Just thoughts. Days. Leaves I pick up on the way home.
Sometimes I write things like:
'She would have laughed at this bird's haircut.'
Or:
'The rice shop smelled like her mittens again.'
I think about the way you held your pencil. How you always curled into your sleeves when you were shy.
I keep wondering if the world remembers us.
If the bench by the river still misses our weight.
I'm coming home for the New Year.
Just five more weeks.
Hold the days gently for me.
Love always,
Oriana."
Anya read it once.
Then again, with her head resting on the desk, heart pounding in her chest.
Five weeks.
Five weeks, and Oriana would be here again.
Her hand shook as she picked up her pen. Not from nerves.
But from joy.
From disbelief that had just begun to dissolve.
She turned the scrapbook to a blank page and wrote:
"The stars waited.
The wind carried her name back to me.
I knew it would."
Over the next few days, everything felt different.
Not brighter.
Not louder.
Just steadier.
Like the world had realigned itself around the possibility of her return.
Anya found herself humming again while tying her shoes. She laughed easier, lingered longer at windows. She began drawing again—not just Oriana, but the world. The town. The rooftops. Mina's smirk. Her mother's tea cup. Her own reflection.
One afternoon, while sketching a maple tree near the old library wall, Mina walked by and paused.
"That's really good," she said, pointing at the drawing.
"Thanks," Anya said.
Mina glanced down. "She's coming back, isn't she?"
Anya looked up, smiling. "Yeah. Soon."
Mina nodded. "You're glowing."
"I think I forgot how to."
"Well," Mina shrugged. "Welcome back."
The final days of November came quietly.
The sky dimmed earlier, lights glowed sooner. Anya bought small gifts—a new pen Oriana would love, a notebook with pressed violets on the cover. She wrote every day, folding small notes into the second scrapbook.
One night, curled beneath the flannel blanket, she whispered aloud to her ceiling:
"I think I'm okay now."
Not because she stopped missing her.
But because the love stayed.
And the love was enough.