chapter 13
1175 Words
Chapter 13– Colours of a Fragile Heart
The morning light was soft, golden, and almost reluctant to spill into the quiet room. Adrian was already awake, his head resting against the headboard while his arm curled protectively around Elena’s frail body. Her breathing was light, almost fragile, and every time she exhaled, his chest tightened with unspoken fear.
When she stirred, Adrian’s eyes snapped to her face. Her lashes fluttered open slowly, and a weak smile touched her lips.
“Good morning,” she whispered, her voice husky, yet full of warmth.
“Good morning, my love,” he murmured back, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a child in the safest arms,” she whispered, resting her cheek against his chest. But then her tone shifted, playful and stubborn at once. “Adrian… will you bring me my paints today?”
His brows knitted. “Paints? Elena, you’re not well enough. You need rest.”
Her hand, slender and cold, reached for his shirt collar. “Adrian, I need this. Please. Before the colours fade from me, I want to put them on canvas.”
He hesitated. Every part of him wanted to say no. To lock her away from every effort, every strain, to protect her from even the slightest risk. But when he looked into her eyes—burning with determination, fragile but unstoppable—he knew he couldn’t deny her.
“Alright,” he whispered finally. “But only if you let me stay right beside you.”
A smile curved on her lips, that radiant smile that always undid him. “Always beside me. That’s the only way I can paint.”
---
An hour later, the room smelled faintly of acrylics and linseed oil. Adrian had placed her easel near the balcony where the soft daylight fell gently across the wooden floor. He brought her sketchbook, brushes, and the worn palette she loved.
Elena sat in her chair, her body fragile but her hands trembling with eagerness. She dipped her brush into a deep blue and began to move it across the white surface. Her strokes were shaky at first, but soon, they flowed with raw emotion.
Adrian watched from the side, silent, as if witnessing a sacred ritual.
“What are you painting?” he asked softly.
Her brush paused. Her lips curved into a faint smile, though her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “A sky. Broken. Torn by storms. But beneath it…”—she dipped the brush into crimson and painted two silhouettes clinging to each other—“…beneath it, two people holding on. Because love doesn’t surrender.”
Adrian’s throat tightened. He walked behind her and rested his chin on her shoulder, his arms sliding around her waist. His eyes fixed on the canvas. The storm, the figures, the chaos, the stubborn closeness—it was them.
“Elena…” His voice cracked. “It’s us.”
She nodded faintly. “It’s always us.”
He kissed her paint-stained fingers, then her temple. The brush trembled in her hand, but she forced herself to keep painting.
---
Minutes passed in silence broken only by the scratch of brush on canvas. Then, suddenly, the brush slipped from her fingers, clattering against the wooden floor.
“Elena!” Adrian caught her as her body swayed, weak and dizzy.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, her lips pale. “I just… I just pushed too much.”
He pulled her close, pressing her face against his chest. His voice was desperate. “No more. Please, Elena. Don’t do this to yourself.”
But she shook her head weakly, her voice breaking. “Adrian… I need to leave something of me behind. If not in time, then in colours. Don’t take that away from me.”
Tears burned in his eyes. He cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. “You are my masterpiece, Elena. You. Not the canvas, not the paint. You are the most beautiful thing I’ll ever hold.”
Her lips trembled. “Promise me, Adrian… if I fade… keep looking for me in colours, in the rain, in everything alive. Don’t let the world forget me.”
He couldn’t stop his tears now. He buried his face against her hair, his shoulders trembling. “Don’t speak like that. I can’t—God, Elena, I can’t even breathe at the thought of losing you.”
Her paint-stained hand reached up, caressing his cheek. “Then love me now, Adrian. Love me so much that time itself bows to it.”
---
That evening, dark clouds gathered outside. Rain hammered against the glass, lightning flashing across the sky. The world outside looked exactly like the storm Elena had painted.
Inside, Adrian set the canvas carefully aside. He turned back to her, sitting on the bed now, her hands still stained with crimson and blue.
When their eyes met, there was no distance left. He crossed the room in two steps and pulled her into his arms. She gasped softly as his lips found hers, tender at first, then deeper, more desperate.
Her fingers clutched at his shirt, leaving streaks of red and blue against the white fabric. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her trembling jaw.
“Elena…” his voice broke between kisses. “You’re everything. My dawn, my night, my eternity.”
She smiled against his lips, tears and laughter mixing. “And you are my breath. Even when it hurts, you’re the reason I still breathe.”
They sank onto the bed, the storm outside echoing the storm in their hearts. Their kisses grew bolder, fiercer, as if clinging to each other was the only way to fight fate. Every touch was a vow, every caress a prayer.
Adrian held her like she was fragile glass, but Elena surprised him by pulling him closer, whispering, “Don’t be gentle tonight. Love me like the storm. I want to feel alive.”
He hesitated, afraid of hurting her, but her pleading eyes dissolved his restraint. Their passion deepened, raw and urgent, as if they were stealing moments from eternity itself.
---
Hours later, the rain eased outside, but inside the room, silence reigned. Elena lay curled in Adrian’s arms, her cheek resting against his chest. Her breathing was soft, her paint-stained fingers still clutching his shirt like she couldn’t let go.
Adrian stroked her hair, his lips pressing against her forehead again and again. His heart was heavy, but also strangely full.
“You are not leaving me,” he whispered fiercely into the quiet. “Not yet. Not ever.”
Her lips curved faintly, even in sleep. As if she had heard him.
Outside, the storm clouds broke, and the moonlight streamed in, falling on the canvas. The storm she had painted now gleamed under the pale light—two figures clinging together beneath the chaos.
It was them. Always them.
And Adrian vowed it always would be.
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- Writer
