Chapter Text
Daniela moved into the room the way grief moves into a body—quietly, without asking.
It was the kind of place with too many windows and not enough light. Sea salt clung to the walls. The floor creaked like it remembered the footsteps of those who passed. She didn’t bring much—just paintbrushes, oversized linen shirts, and the last photograph she still allowed herself to look at.
Each morning, she painted.
Always the same girl. Standing by the ocean, arms loose at her sides. Hair long and black, with bangs brushing over shadowed eyes.
Her face never stayed.
It wasn’t intentional. Daniela would paint the curve of a cheek, the hint of an eyelash—and then blink and find it gone. As if the canvas had refused to hold her. As if it, too, had forgotten.
She didn’t give her a name.
That would make her real.
-
Manon was already making matcha when Daniela arrived.
“You’re late,” Manon said without looking up, her accent soft with amusement. “We were about to send Lara to fetch you, and you know how she loves a good rescue.”
Daniela let her mouth curl, barely. “You’re the ones who live off a cliff.”
“I call it elevated living,” Megan chimed in from the couch, cross-legged, sweater sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her laugh came easy, like rain on the roof. “Sit down, Dani. You look like you haven’t eaten since last year.”
Daniela took the seat nearest the window, her fingers playing with the chipped paint on the armrest. Lara passed her a cup—oat milk, extra ice, just how she used to like it. They hadn’t asked. They remembered.
There was warmth here. In the mismatched mugs, the sound of spoons against ceramic, the low hum of women who were still soft with each other. It made something in Daniela’s chest ache, like a bruise she couldn’t quite place.
“What’ve you been working on?” Megan asked gently, not prying, only open.
Daniela looked out the window. The waves were louder today. Closer.
“Portraits,” she said.
Manon raised an eyebrow. “Of?”
Daniela lied. “No one in particular.”
The room shifted. Not harshly. Just... pulled taut.
Lara set her cup down with more force than necessary. “You should paint the sea instead. Something that exists.”
There was silence, brief, but painfully existent.
Manon shot her a look. “Lara—”
“It’s fine,” Daniela said, voice steady. Still polite. She took a sip of her matcha, eyes never leaving the window. “The sea forgets, too.”
They didn’t talk about her after that. They talked about books, and cats, and whether or not the new girl from the bakery had a crush on Megan.
Daniela laughed when she was supposed to. Smiled when it made things easier.
But when she walked home, her hands smelled like lemons and woodsmoke. And for a long time, she stood outside her front door, wondering why warmth always felt like something temporary.
She didn’t open the painting room again that night. But she heard the sea scratching at her windows.
And she dreamed of someone laughing in the light.
-
The next morning, she wandered into the bookstore without meaning to.
She wasn’t looking for a novel, wasn’t feeling romantic or curious or smart. She just wanted to be somewhere the past wouldn’t follow. Somewhere with rows. With order.
“Morning,” came the voice from behind the desk.
Charlie, early twenties, a little awkward, always smelled faintly of printer ink.
“You’re up early. Again.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Daniela said, then added, “It’s the tide.”
It was always the tide.
She traced her fingers along the spines—dusty reds, moody blues, paperbacks with creased corners. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry. The “local authors” section had three books, all memoirs, all written by people who had either survived the sea or lost someone to it.
She picked up one with no cover. Just a plain purple jacket and the title embossed in a font so faint she had to tilt it toward the light.
'things i meant to say before they left.'
She didn’t open it.
-
In the corner, someone coughed. A girl. Younger, scribbling in the margins of a used paperback. Curled up on a footstool like she lived there. Daniela turned away quickly. Not because she recognized her—but because for half a second, she thought she did.
She used to see her everywhere.
On the beach. In reflections. At the produce stand holding apricots.
Her body had been a memory for so long that her face forgot how to stay gone.
-
Charlie spoke again. “You still painting?”
Daniela paused. “Yeah.”
“Portraits?”
She nodded.
He tilted his head. “Of someone you know?”
She let out a chuckle. “Something like that.”
-
On the way out, she bought the book with no cover.
Charlie didn’t ask why.
Daniela carried it home in her coat pocket.
Didn’t open it. Didn’t read it.
Just set it on her windowsill, next to her mug of paint water and a single, drying hydrangea.
It stayed there for days.
Unmoving.
Like everything else she refused to name.
-
It started to rain just after six.
Not a downpour, not yet—just that slow, careful kind of rain that slips down the spine of the town, fills the gutters with old wounds, and tapping against windows like it’s trying to come inside.
Daniela stayed in. She didn’t paint that day.
The light in the house was dimming when Megan showed up, car parked outside the gate, cardigan damp at the cuffs. “I brought soup,” she said simply, holding up a thermos. “Figured you could use the extra warmth.”
Daniela stepped aside and let her in. “You’re observant.”
“I design for a living. It’s in the job description.”
-
They sat on opposite sides of the couch, legs tucked beneath them, mismatched mugs in hand. The air inside smelled like wax and wet fabric.
“You ever read that one?” Megan asked, nodding to the book on the windowsill.
Daniela followed her gaze to the purple-jacketed novel—things i meant to say before they left.
“No,” she said. “It’s just sitting there.”
Megan didn’t push. She just sipped quietly and let the storm fill in the space between them.
After a long pause, she said, “The others don’t ask about her.”
“I know,” Daniela said.
“They don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t either.”
Megan adjusted the blanket around her shoulders and leaned back into the cushions. “You don’t have to explain anything. But you don’t have to keep pretending she was no one, either.”
Daniela stared into her soup like it might tell her something. The thunder rolled again, farther now. Or closer. She couldn’t tell anymore.
“I never said she was no one.”
“No. But you never acted like she was someone.”
They didn’t speak after that. Just sat. Megan stayed until the rain began to sound like footsteps.
When she left, she didn’t say goodbye. She just gave Daniela’s hand a brief, grounding squeeze before stepping into her car and driving away.
Later, Daniela sat alone on the studio floor. The wind had grown rougher, clawing at the windows. Outside, the ocean was raging—like something had been kept quiet too long.
The painting leaned in the corner.
Blank-faced. Waiting.
She couldn’t destroy it. But she couldn’t finish it either.
Then—
A knock.
Slow.
Then again, louder. Urgent.
She stood. Opened the door.
And there she was.
Standing in the rain. Completely dry. Her long black hair clung to her cheeks, bangs plastered to her forehead.
She looked at Daniela like she already knew the weight she carried in her chest.
Her eyes flicked to the palette knife still in Daniela’s hand, then to the dried streaks of ochre on her sleeves. She tilted her head to glance at the waiting canvas—almost amused. Almost sad.
Then she spoke.
“Is that supposed to be me?”
-
Daniela didn’t speak.
The rain kept falling behind her—harder now, like the wind had grown impatient. The girl on her doorstep didn’t shiver. Didn’t blink. She just looked at Daniela like she was waiting for something to catch up.
A question. A memory. A reckoning.
And then, without hesitation, she stepped inside.
The door clicked shut behind her like a sealed breath.
She walked straight into the room with the paintings. Didn’t comment on the canvases leaned against the walls like wilted flowers. Didn’t flinch at the half-finished portrait, still faceless.
She ran her fingers along the wooden frame of the easel. Paused there. Turned.
Daniela hadn’t moved.
Her hair smelled like vanilla and smiles. Her socks made no sound on the floor. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter—but no less certain.
“Hey, Dani. It's been a while”
There was no question.
And Daniela didn’t answer.
Because how do you explain that you arranged the furniture the same way? That you only ever played one song on the record player—her favourite? That the jar of dried hydrangeas on the sill hadn’t been moved in months because it was the last thing she'd touched?
How do you explain that grief makes you an archivist of ordinary things?
-
Sophia. That was her name, even if Daniela wouldn’t say it, looked around like this was just another afternoon.
Her fingers traced the chipped rim of a mug. She glanced at the record player. She even smiled faintly at a postcard pinned above the bookshelf.
“You haven’t changed much,” she said.
And Daniela wanted to laugh.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to ask, ’You left. How can you say that?’’
Instead, she asked the only question she could bear.“Why are you here?”
Sophia tilted her head. Like the question had missed the point.
“You never let me leave.”
Daniela could only hum quietly in broken acknowledgement. Moving aside, she paced towards the kitchen and grabbed two mugs.
She didn’t ask if the other girl wanted coffee.
She just put the water in the pot.
Sophia didn’t offer to help. She moved like a memory, weightless but present, and sat in the chair by the window—her chair. The one with the indented cushion and a faint red wine stain from the December night everything felt warm enough to spill.
Daniela moved in muscle memory, her motions careful and habitual. She poured the coffee into their mugs without thinking. Reflex. Grief disguised as routine.
Neither of them spoke as the steam rose through the air.
Daniela placed one mug in front of her without looking.
The girl took it like it had never stopped being hers.
Their silence wasn’t awkward. It was old.
Outside, the sea kept moving, restless and swollen. Rain tapped against the windows in uneven rhythms. Inside, the walls held their breath. The house knew to be quiet, too.
She cradled her mug, both hands curled around it like she needed something to ground her. She didn’t drink. Just watched the steam rise and disappear.
“The windows fog up faster now,” she murmured. Her voice still had that lilt—soft, like something remembered.
Daniela leaned against the counter. Her fingers curled around the edge of it. “I like the blur.”
A glance. Just a flicker.
“Of course you do,” the girl said, not unkindly.
They let the silence return.
Outside, the storm gathered its weight. Dani remembered.
That summer was thick. With heat. With things unsaid. With softness neither of them knew how to hold properly.
Sophia used to peel mangoes over the sink, juice running down to her elbows. Sticky, sweet, gold-stained hands. Daniela would sit on the counter beside her, legs drawn in, trying not to be obvious about watching.
“Why don’t you ever paint me happy?” Sophia had asked once, tossing a sliver of fruit into her mouth.
Daniela tilted her head. “You don’t stay still when you’re happy.”
Sophia grinned, full and bright. “Neither do you.”
They swam far out that week. Past the safe part of the sea. Let the waves drag them under, push them back. Daniela had come up coughing, laughing. Sophia had looked at her and said:
“Theoretically, if I was gone, would you paint me then?”
Daniela didn’t answer.
She still hadn’t.
Sophia stood. Crossed the room barefoot. She found the record player without asking, fingers brushing over spines of vinyl like she was reading braille.
She picked the same one. Always the same one. Soft humming. Wordless.
The music filtered in slowly, like mist. It curled into corners.
“What happened, Dani? You used to ask me to stay,” she said.
Daniela looked up.
“You don’t anymore.”
Daniela swallowed. Her voice, if she had one, stayed in her chest.
What could she say? That she still whispered her name like a prayer no one taught her the ending to? That she painted her face again and again only to find it gone by morning? That keeping her here—in pigment and silence, in a jar of hydrangeas left too long on the sill—was the only way she knew how to love someone she was never allowed to grieve?
But there was no asking. No accusing. Just presence.
The girl curled into the chair again, folding into the room like she never left. Like she’d never needed to.
The scent of vanilla mingled with the rain.
—
Then came the knock.
Three quick raps against the door.
Daniela stilled. The record cracked softly beneath the weight of silence.
The girl looked up but didn’t move.
Another knock. Sharper now.
Daniela walked to the door slowly, as if she might dissolve if she moved too fast.
She opened it.
Marquise stood under the porch light, soaked through. Her umbrella was forgotten, or maybe abandoned. Water clung to her lashes.
“You didn't show up for dinner,” she said.
Daniela blinked at her. “I wasn’t hungry.”
Marquise took half a step forward. Then stopped. "Yoonchae was looking for you."
Her eyes slid past Daniela—into the house, over her shoulder.
The second mug. The spinning record. The chair.
Occupied?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
“Who’s here?” she asked.
Daniela held the door with both hands. Anchored herself there.
The answer beat against her ribs like a pulse. “No one,” she said.
Marquise didn’t believe her. Not really. But she didn’t push.
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
A nod. Rain dripping from her sleeves. Soaked with the truth that only she knew between the two.
“Call me tomorrow.”
She turned and left.
Daniela closed the door. Turned back.
The mug was still there.
But the chair was empty.
Dani could only exhale, painfully. Was it hope, or perhaps dread, flickering in her throat.