Between the Stars and the Sea

Chapter Two – Brushstrokes of Kindness

Chapter Two – Brushstrokes of Kindness

The morning after I saw him—Adrian, the neighbor with the sea-glass eyes—I woke to the smell of salt and the sound of gulls arguing above my roof.

For a moment, I forgot where I was. My body still expected Daniel’s alarm clock, his arm thrown across me like a chain, his cologne in the sheets. When my eyes adjusted to the streak of light cutting across the cottage, reality trickled back in. Daniel was three hours away. And he wasn’t mine anymore.

I stood at the window, clutching the chipped mug of coffee I’d found in the cabinet, and stared at the ocean until the caffeine burned enough strength into my veins to make me feel alive again.

Then came the knock.

It was soft, almost polite. I hesitated, because strangers at the door felt dangerous now. Everything did.

When I opened it, Adrian was there—casual, easy smile, a basket of something covered by a towel in his hands.

“Morning,” he said, like we were already friends. “Thought you might not have had time to stock up. Welcome-to-the-neighborhood kind of thing.”

He lifted the towel. Fresh bread. Still warm. My throat went tight. Daniel never baked. He never even bought groceries without complaining.

I blinked too long, probably made him uncomfortable, because Adrian shifted. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep. I just—I’m a believer in carbs as a peace offering.”

A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. It was small, cracked at the edges, but real. “Peace accepted,” I said, taking the basket.

His smile deepened, like he’d won something. “There’s a little market in town on Saturdays. I was headed there. If you’re up for it, I could show you around?”

Every bone in my body wanted to say no. To stay hidden in this cottage with my paints, where rejection couldn’t reach me again. But his tone wasn’t pushy. It was… safe.

And God, I needed safe.

“Okay,” I heard myself say.

The town looked like it belonged in a painting. Brightly painted storefronts, uneven cobblestone streets, flower boxes spilling over with color. It smelled of sea air and fried dough.

Adrian knew everyone. Every shopkeeper greeted him by name, and he introduced me like I wasn’t a stranger, but someone worth knowing.

“This is Elena,” he’d say. “She’s an artist. Just moved in by the cliffs.”

Artist. My chest ached every time he said it. I hadn’t painted since Daniel left. But hearing the word on Adrian’s lips, spoken like it was fact instead of a role I’d abandoned, felt like inhaling oxygen after months of drowning.

At the market, he pointed out the fishmonger, the best coffee cart, the tiny bookstore that looked like it had grown from the ground itself.

He didn’t ask me about my past. He didn’t push. He talked about the sea turtles he studied, about the way the population had been slowly recovering. He spoke about them with such reverence, like their existence was a miracle.

And something in me shifted. Maybe if creatures that fragile could survive, so could I.

By the time we returned, my arms were full of things I hadn’t intended to buy—fresh paintbrushes from a little art stand, a sketchbook, a jar of homemade jam.

When I set everything down on my kitchen table, Adrian glanced at the blank canvases stacked by the window.

“Do you paint every day?” he asked.

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say I never stopped. But the truth burned too bitter.

“Not anymore.”

He didn’t push. He just nodded. “Well… if you do again, I’d like to see your work sometime.”

Something about the way he said it—soft, without demand, without expectation—planted itself in me.

After he left, I sat in front of the canvas for an hour, staring at its white emptiness. My fingers twitched. My chest ached.

Finally, I dipped the brush in color. Blue first, then gold, then the deepest black.

It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t finished. But it was mine.

And when I pressed the brush down, dragging pigment across silence, it felt like the first time I’d exhaled in months.