Chapter 60: When the Wind Knows Her Name
The wind moved differently that day—gentler, almost reverent. Like it remembered something. Like it whispered to the trees about the girl who used to laugh in the sunlight, and the other girl who learned how to live by learning how to love her.
Anya stood at the edge of the field where the seasons first met them. It was no longer a place of chance but of memory. Every blade of grass seemed to bow beneath her feet as she stepped barefoot into the tall summer. She carried a basket of lotus flowers—not because Oriana had asked for them, but because Anya remembered that quiet afternoon when she said they were her favorite.
Oriana.
The name lived in her mouth like a prayer.
She was sitting under the Bodhi tree, legs folded neatly beneath her, sketchbook open but forgotten beside her. She was humming something soft, something Anya didn't know but would've asked to hear a thousand times more.
"There you are," Anya whispered, not to interrupt but to belong.
Oriana looked up, her smile a sunrise across her face. "I thought you might come today."
Anya smiled back, setting the basket down and sitting close enough to feel the heat from Oriana's shoulder. "I come every year. This is the season you gave me."
"Is it still yours?"
Anya turned to her. "Only because you're still in it."
Oriana touched Anya's wrist, the way she used to—lightly, reverently. "I never really left, did I?"
"No." Her voice caught like a note in the throat. "You never did."
There was a moment suspended between them. The kind of moment that doesn't ask for anything loud—just eyes, just breath, just the quiet hum of a world trying to keep itself from breaking.
"I remember," Anya said softly, "when we were just two girls who didn't know what we were allowed to feel. You smiled at me like the world was made softer just because I existed. Do you know what that did to me?"
Oriana laughed quietly. "It made you brave. And maybe a little reckless."
"It made me fall in love."
She reached over, brushing a strand of Oriana's hair back. Her fingers lingered against her cheek, just long enough to say I missed you in the language only they understood.
Oriana's eyes shimmered. "Then tell me again. Like it's the first time."
Anya took a breath. Then another. The words gathered slow, like rain before the monsoon.
"I love you, Oriana. Not for what you are when you're with me, but for what you are when you think no one is watching. I love the way your fingers twitch when you draw something that scares you. I love the way you say my name when you're half-asleep. I love you when you're angry, when you're quiet, when you're not trying to be anyone but yourself."
The world was utterly still.
Oriana touched her chest, right above her heart. "And I love you, Anya. For seeing me. For waiting when I ran. For staying when I was too scared to speak. I love the way you never gave up—even when I wanted to disappear."
Anya leaned forward. Their foreheads touched.
It wasn't desperate. It wasn't loud.
It was just them.
The way it had always been meant to be.
"I used to think," Oriana said slowly, "that maybe we were a story that would only ever end in sadness. But I think I was wrong. We're not a tragedy. We're a season. One that keeps returning."
Anya smiled against her skin. "Then let this be our spring."
They kissed—soft and slow, like petals unfurling beneath the sun. Not the kind of kiss made for fireworks or grand finales. But the kind that planted roots. The kind that rewrote endings.
The field around them shimmered. Not with magic, not with miracles. Just with the weight of two girls who had fought their way back to each other. Who had chosen to stay. Who had turned a moment into a lifetime.
"I used to write you letters," Anya whispered after. "Even after you left."
"I read them," Oriana said. "All of them. Every word. I kept them under my pillow."
"Even the terrible poems?"
"Especially the terrible poems."
They laughed.
Then silence.
Then just wind.
And in that silence, Anya reached into the basket, pulling out the last lotus flower. She placed it in Oriana's hand. "This one's not for remembering. It's for now."
"For now," Oriana repeated.
They stood together, walking toward the lake nearby. Their fingers brushed, then laced, like they were old friends. Or new lovers. Or both.
Anya dipped her toes in the water. Oriana followed.
They stood ankle-deep in the cool shallows, the sky overhead a painted silk of coral and blue.
"Do you still believe in seasons?" Oriana asked.
"I believe in you," Anya said.
"That's not the same thing."
"It is to me."
Oriana leaned her head on Anya's shoulder. "Then maybe I'll stay."
"You don't have to promise."
"I want to."
The moment held.
And in the wind, in the water, in the way their hands refused to let go, something quiet and sacred bloomed.
It wasn't the beginning of something new.
It was the continuation of everything they'd dared to hope for.
One Year Later
The café was tucked into a corner of town where vines crawled like dreams across whitewashed walls, and bells on the door chimed like memory. Anya wiped her hands on her apron, stepping outside to the courtyard, where sunlight filtered through orange trees and Oriana sat beneath them, sketching children chasing butterflies.
"How's the linework?" Anya asked, crouching beside her.
Oriana tilted her head, studying her own pencil. "Too soft."
"No such thing," Anya said. "Not if it's yours."
They kissed—brief, familiar.
"I saved you a mooncake," Anya said.
Oriana grinned. "You always do."
They didn't talk about the past much anymore. It wasn't forgotten. It had simply settled. Like old dust in sunlight—always visible, never heavy.
The seasons had stopped rushing.
They came and went in rhythm now.
They grew together.
And when Oriana walked into the gallery later that month, hand in hand with Anya, she titled the exhibit not after herself, not after her art, but after the moment everything had begun:
"Her Smile, My Season."
And Anya, standing beside her, knew it wasn't just a title.
It was a promise.