Chapter 3: The Secret Between Us
Oriana stopped walking.
They were halfway down a narrow alley laced with vines and overgrown clay pots. The late sun spilled over the old red walls, catching in her hair like firelight. She didn't turn to face Anya right away. She just stood there, her arms crossed loosely, as if hugging something invisible to her chest.
Anya paused a few steps behind.
"What is it?" she asked gently.
Oriana's voice came quiet. "Do you ever feel like you're made of too many selves?"
Anya blinked. "Like… different versions of me?"
"Yes," Oriana said. "Like there's the one you show to the world, and then there's the one that stays awake at night wondering if anyone will ever really know her."
Anya swallowed. The air in the alley felt thinner now.
"I think," she said slowly, "that I carry those versions like shadows. Some are lighter. Some still cling to me."
Oriana turned.
Her eyes didn't shimmer like usual. They looked still, like a pond about to be disturbed by a single drop.
"I lied to you," she said.
Anya blinked. "About what?"
"I didn't go to visit my grandmother last week. I wasn't sick either."
The world didn't shift. It didn't need to.
It just… paused.
Oriana stepped forward, her voice soft, but weighted.
"I disappeared because I was scared. Not of you, but of what this is. What I'm feeling."
Anya didn't interrupt. She couldn't.
"I've had to hide for so long," Oriana continued. "Not just from the world. From myself. Because if I said it out loud—if I admitted that I feel something for you—it would become real. And real things can break."
Anya took a small step closer. "So can the things we leave unspoken."
Oriana stared at her.
A long silence passed between them. Then Oriana reached into her bag and pulled out a small folded paper—a letter. Edges soft from being opened too many times.
She handed it to Anya.
"I wrote this the day after we met. I wasn't going to give it to you. But maybe it's time."
Anya hesitated, then unfolded the paper.
Anya,
I don't know your name yet. But I already know the way you look at things, and that tells me more than most names ever could.
You see without asking. You wait without pressing. That's rare.
If I were braver, I'd sit beside you. I'd say hello. I'd ask you what you see when you look at me. But I'm not brave—not yet. I'm just a girl hoping someone will stay long enough to find me.
Maybe tomorrow.
—O
Anya's throat tightened.
The letter trembled in her hands. She folded it carefully and pressed it against her chest.
"I was already looking," she whispered. "From the first moment."
Oriana looked away. "I didn't know if I deserved to be seen."
"You do," Anya said. "You always did."
And then—slowly, as if moving through water—Oriana stepped forward and rested her forehead against Anya's.
It wasn't a kiss.
It was something softer.
More sacred.
A stillness that carried the weight of everything they hadn't said until now.
Later, they sat on the temple steps, watching the lanterns rise into the dusk. It was Loy Krathong, the festival of lights. Wishes floated on the river, flames rising into the sky like stars born from human hands.
"I used to wish to be someone else," Oriana said.
Anya turned to her.
"Someone braver," Oriana added. "Someone who could say what she wanted without trembling."
"And now?" Anya asked.
Oriana smiled.
"Now I wish I can stay exactly as I am… if it means staying beside you."
Anya reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together.
Neither of them looked away as the lanterns climbed higher.
They walked home in silence again, but it was no longer the silence of hesitation.
It was the silence of knowing.
Of trust settling into the spaces where fear once lived.
They didn't need to rush.
Some stories are told slowly—not because they fear the ending, but because the beginning deserves to last.
That night, Anya wrote in her journal:
She gave me her truth, not dressed in poetry or wrapped in light. Just handed it to me, trembling. And I held it like a season I wanted to stay in forever.
She didn't draw that night either.
Instead, she sat on the floor by the window, staring at the moon.
Waiting.
Hoping the girl with the firelight smile would come again tomorrow.
And somehow knowing she would.