Chapter 20 : "The Color of Staying"
They painted the door on a Sunday morning.
Not all at once. Not in a hurry.
But like a prayer — one careful stroke at a time.
Anya stood barefoot, a cloth wrapped around her hair, watching the brush glide in Oriana's hand. The new color was soft — a blue that held the memory of skies and rivers, but deeper. A blue that didn't ask to be noticed, only to be felt.
"Is it too dark?" Oriana asked, pulling the brush back to inspect her work.
"No," Anya said, smiling. "It's like a promise."
Oriana looked at her. "What kind?"
"The kind you keep even on hard days."
They kept painting.
Birds sang in the trees overhead. Mair passed by with a woven basket and waved. A dog wandered into their yard and lay down under the tree as if it had always belonged there.
By midday, the door glistened under the sun, drying slowly, catching every light breeze like it was listening.
They sat beneath the tree to eat cold rice and grilled chicken wrapped in banana leaves. The wind moved through the branches in soft shivers.
"I never thought forever would look like this," Oriana said.
Anya turned to her. "How did you imagine it?"
"I didn't," she said honestly. "Forever wasn't something I trusted. It felt like a story other people got. Not me."
Anya was quiet a moment, then reached for her hand.
"Maybe it's not about what we thought. Maybe it's just… what we choose. Over and over."
Oriana nodded. "Then I choose you. Every time."
The inside of the house came next.
They cleared a corner near the window for Anya's art — unpacking her brushes, sketchbooks, and the tiny jars of color she'd carried across three towns. Oriana unrolled a faded rug she'd found in the village market. It didn't match anything, but it felt lived-in. It felt like morning laughter and dancing barefoot.
They put their books on the shelf — Oriana's poetry first, then Anya's illustrated novels, side by side, like they'd always meant to belong that way.
Every little thing they placed down carried a memory.
The cracked mug that held pencils now — from their first night in the guesthouse. The small woven lantern Oriana had bargained for at the floating market. A pair of wind chimes that had hung outside Anya's childhood window, silent for years, now gently singing above the porch.
By the end of the week, the house wasn't finished — but it no longer felt borrowed.
It felt like them.
It smelled like fresh rice and soft incense. It sounded like laughter through open windows. It looked like love in the details — crooked frames, dried flowers, mismatched cushions.
One evening, they lay tangled on the floor, a blanket beneath them and Oriana's head resting against Anya's belly.
Above them, the ceiling danced in candlelight.
Anya was sketching a new drawing — a quiet porch, two silhouettes under stars, a kettle steaming in the background. Home, distilled into lines.
"I'm scared," Oriana whispered.
Anya stopped sketching. "Of what?"
"Of getting so happy that it disappears. That I ruin it somehow. That one day you'll look at me and wonder why you stayed."
Anya set the notebook down and leaned over her.
"Do you know what I wonder?" she whispered. "How I ever breathed before I met you."
Oriana blinked, eyes shining.
"I didn't fall in love with a perfect person. I fell in love with you. Messy. Tender. Brave. And if something ever cracks between us, I'll sit in the space with you. I won't leave."
Oriana exhaled.
"You always say the right things."
"No," Anya said. "I just say what's true."
And then she kissed her — not because the moment asked for it, but because Oriana's breath had become a kind of silence that deserved to be answered with softness.
They hung a string of lanterns above the porch. White, gold, and pale rose.
At night, they lit them and sat underneath, legs tucked, tea in their hands, the village slowly fading into darkness around them.
Oriana began writing again.
Little things, in the notebook they now shared — snippets of the day, thoughts she didn't know how to say aloud, poems she wrote only for Anya.
One evening, she left a note on Anya's pillow:
"Today, you danced in the kitchen and didn't know I was watching.
You spilled rice, laughed, and cursed in the same breath.
And I thought,
This is the kind of love I'll plant gardens around."
Anya found her in the garden later, watering the lemongrass.
She walked up behind her and hugged her, arms tight, her chin resting on Oriana's shoulder.
"I think I'm falling in love with you again," she whispered.
"Good," Oriana said. "Then we're doing it right."
The days blurred, but in the best way — like petals in the wind, soft and slow.
They biked to the market every Thursday, Oriana always bargaining too loudly, Anya laughing behind her scarf. They invited Mair for lunch one weekend, and she brought pickled mangoes and a story about her first kiss.
One night, they stayed up too late talking about nothing — old crushes, favorite songs, whether cats understood heartbreak.
And then one rainy morning, as thunder rumbled low in the hills and rain curled down the windows in silver veins, Oriana looked up from her journal and said:
"This is the happiest I've ever been."
Anya smiled.
"Me too."
They didn't kiss right then. They didn't need to.
Sometimes love is just shared silence. Just the sound of rain and the comfort of someone staying in the room.
Later that night, curled up in their shared blanket, Anya whispered, "Do you think we'll last?"
Oriana turned her head. "Do you think love is about lasting?"
Anya blinked.
"I mean," Oriana continued, "I think love is about returning. About coming back — even when it's hard. Even when it's quiet. Even when you don't know the right words."
She touched Anya's chest. "I'll come back to you. Always."
Anya closed her eyes.
And in the stillness between them, the room said nothing.
But it felt like forever.