Chapter 56: The Room She Left Open
The morning after the talent night, Oriana stood in front of her mother's house with her bag slung over one shoulder and the folded letter still tucked into her palm.
She didn't knock right away.
The jasmine bush beside the front gate had bloomed again. A few petals clung to the edge of the doorbell. The sun hadn't yet climbed high, and everything felt suspended — like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting to see if this time would be different.
When she finally pressed the bell, there were footsteps inside.
The door opened.
Her mother didn't smile.
But she stepped aside.
And left the door wide enough for Oriana to walk in.
Inside, everything looked the same — but smaller. The books on the shelf, the picture frames, the low wooden stool her grandmother used to sit on while peeling mangoes.
But Oriana felt bigger.
Not in arrogance.
Just… fuller.
More whole.
Her mother walked into the kitchen. The scent of ginger tea drifted through the house.
Oriana stood in the living room.
She didn't sit.
She didn't speak.
She waited.
Her mother returned with two cups of tea. Set one down on the table. Sipped hers slowly.
After a long pause, she said: "The piano still works, you know."
Oriana looked up.
"I never had the heart to sell it."
She nodded. "I didn't ask you to."
Another pause. Then: "You sounded like her last night."
Oriana's chest caught. "You mean grandma?"
Her mother's gaze softened. "She always said love should sound like music — even when people didn't understand the words."
Oriana finally sat.
And for the first time in what felt like months, they just… drank tea.
Without walking on glass.
That afternoon, she texted me:
Oriana: She made me congee and asked if you liked ginger in your soup. I think that was her way of saying she's trying.
Me: And what did you say?
Oriana: That you like when the ginger is thin and not floating at the top.
Me: You remember everything.
Oriana: Only what matters.
The weekend became a pocket of calm — a folded square of time that belonged only to us.
Oriana stayed at my house Saturday night.
We made instant noodles with soft-boiled eggs and sat on the floor of my bedroom, listening to music from an old playlist we'd made months ago but never finished.
"I have an idea," she said, lifting her head from my shoulder.
"For what?"
"A project. For us."
I turned to her. "A secret one?"
She grinned. "The best kind."
We gathered everything we needed on Sunday: scraps of fabric, dried flowers from the temple courtyard, tiny poems we'd written on index cards, Polaroid pictures, music notes, ribbon, glue, thread, and pages torn from old school notebooks.
And a box.
A plain wooden box we painted white.
"This will be our capsule," Oriana said. "Not for the future. Just for us."
"Now?"
"Now."
We called it the Heart Box.
We worked on it all afternoon.
I folded the paper cranes from the talent night and tucked one inside.
She pressed petals from the frangipani tree into handmade paper.
I wrote a single line on mine:
She taught me to be brave without a sword.
Oriana sewed a tiny cloth heart from an old blouse that had grown too tight.
We giggled at how crooked it looked.
But it smelled like her perfume, and that was enough.
By evening, the box was full.
Not with grand memories.
Just our memories.
A green ribbon.
A music sheet with crossed-out lines.
A tiny shell we'd found on the edge of the temple pond.
Two fortune cookie slips that accidentally predicted us.
And a note — one we wrote together, line by line.
To the girls we are now,
and the girls we'll become —
May this remind us that even when the world forgets,
we remember.
We loved.
We dared.
We hid the box under the loose tile on my balcony.
"Will you remember where it is?" Oriana asked, brushing dust from her knees.
"Always."
She leaned over and kissed me.
Slow.
Certain.
The kind of kiss that doesn't ask for anything.
Only offers.
That night, we lay side by side in my bed, facing the ceiling, our pinkies barely touching.
"Do you think we'll ever have to leave each other?" I asked, afraid of the words even as I said them.
Oriana was quiet for a long time.
Then she said:
"If we do, I hope it's because we're walking in different directions toward the same sky."
I blinked. "That doesn't make sense."
She smiled. "I know. But it feels true."
She left the next morning, early, before the sun fully rose.
We stood outside my gate in the hush of morning, her hand brushing mine one last time before she turned.
"I'll write," she said. "Even when we don't need letters anymore."
"And I'll read them," I said, "even when I already know what they say."
She nodded.
And walked away.
Later that day, I returned to the balcony.
I lifted the tile.
Took out the Heart Box.
Opened it just for a moment.
Inside, everything was still there.
Still ours.
And for once, the world didn't feel so heavy.