Chapter 8: The Way Back to Her
The taxi stopped just before the alley.
Oriana didn't ask the driver to take her the rest of the way. She wanted to walk the last steps home. She wanted to feel her own footsteps against the street she had memorized in dreams.
It was late—too late for shops, too early for birds—but the air was soft, and the sky held that in-between blue that came just before dawn. She clutched her bag to her chest, one hand trembling slightly where it curled around the strap.
The city hadn't changed.
But she had.
She knew it in the way the silence no longer felt heavy, and in the way her heart didn't race from fear, only from hope.
She passed the shrine on the corner.
The banyan tree.
The noodle stall.
All asleep.
But one light burned—soft, golden, waiting.
Anya's window.
She didn't knock.
She stood at the bottom of the steps for a long time, looking up, unsure whether she was more afraid of waking her—or of finding her already awake.
Then, without sound, the curtains shifted.
A figure moved.
And suddenly, there was Anya—at the window, hair messy from sleep, wrapped in the same soft gray sweater Oriana had once fallen asleep against in the park.
Their eyes met through glass.
And it was like all the time in between folded up and vanished.
No one said anything.
Anya just disappeared from view.
A few seconds later, the door creaked open.
Oriana stepped forward.
Anya didn't ask anything.
She just reached out.
And Oriana walked into her arms.
They didn't cry.
They didn't speak.
They just stood in the hallway with the door half-open behind them, holding each other as if they were returning from war.
Oriana buried her face in Anya's shoulder. She breathed in the scent of lemongrass soap and cotton, and thought: I'm home.
Anya whispered, "You came back early."
"I couldn't stay another day."
And Anya smiled against her hair. "I hoped you wouldn't."
They sat on the kitchen floor, legs tucked beneath them, tea steaming between their palms.
Oriana looked at Anya like she didn't want to blink, like blinking might make her disappear again.
"I brought you something," she said, reaching into her bag.
She pulled out a notebook—smaller than the others. Worn. Soft-edged.
Anya took it gently, as if it might bruise.
"What is it?"
"My Kyoto journal," Oriana said. "All the things I didn't send you."
Anya flipped it open. Inside were dried leaves pressed into the corners of pages. Photos taped with care. Handwritten thoughts curved like poems.
A sparrow followed me down the alley today. I pretended it was you, asking where I've been.
The light at Ginkaku-ji fell across the stone garden like hands praying.
Sometimes I'd see a girl in the crowd and forget it wasn't you. Then I'd remember—there's only one of you.
Anya closed the book and held it to her chest.
"I'll read it slowly," she whispered. "Like breathing."
They didn't go to sleep.
Instead, they curled up on the couch, wrapped in blankets and tangled knees, watching the light return through the windows.
Oriana pressed her fingers to the pulse in Anya's wrist.
"You feel the same."
"I hoped I would," Anya whispered.
Then—
"Did it change you?"
Oriana was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," she said. "But not in the way I thought."
Anya waited.
"I thought I'd come back brighter," Oriana said. "Wiser. Like the world would polish me. But instead, it carved me."
"Carved?"
Oriana nodded. "Into something that knew what mattered. Into someone who missed you even when she was laughing."
Anya smiled, slow and soft. "You brought pieces of yourself back to me."
"I never left them behind," Oriana said. "I just carried them somewhere else, so I'd know how strong they were."
That afternoon, they went to the park.
The one with the cracked stone benches and the koi pond with too few fish. They sat where they always had—beneath the low tree whose branches dipped like shy hands toward the water.
Oriana leaned against Anya's shoulder.
"I wrote letters I never sent," she said.
Anya looked at her. "Why?"
"Because they weren't ready. Because some love needs to live a while before it can be read."
Anya pulled a folded paper from her coat pocket.
"So did I."
She handed it over.
Oriana opened it. A single sentence sprawled across the page, written with her favorite pen:
You feel like something I dreamed before I had words to ask for it.
Oriana laughed quietly. Then her voice broke: "You say the things I'm scared of needing."
"That's because I need them too," Anya replied.
The sun dipped lower.
Children ran across the field.
And in the quiet, Oriana asked, "What happens now?"
Anya took her hand.
"Now we begin again."
"From the start?"
"No," Anya said, her voice certain. "From the middle. The best stories always start there."
Oriana nodded.
And for the first time in weeks, she closed her eyes and let herself rest—not because she was tired.
But because she was safe.
Because she was held.
That night, they lay side by side on Anya's bed, faces turned toward the ceiling, hearts still soft from reunion.
Oriana whispered, "Do you think love can survive time?"
Anya didn't answer at first.
Then—
"Only if it keeps choosing. Every day."
"And if it forgets?"
"It remembers," Anya said. "Eventually. If it was real, it always remembers."
Oriana smiled, even though tears lined her lashes.
And before sleep claimed them, Anya said, "I love you."
Oriana didn't whisper it back.
She pressed her lips to Anya's shoulder instead, like a vow without sound.
Because sometimes love didn't need to echo.
Sometimes it just needed to be.
And in that quiet—
they stayed.
Together.
Whole.
And still choosing.