THE COLOUR OF LOVE

Shades of Familiar

Chapter 3 – Shades of Familiar

The morning after the library felt softer than usual.

Emilia woke up before the sun fully climbed over the rooftops. The house was still, the kind of quiet that didn’t ask for anything. She lingered under the covers, her fingers trailing the edge of her bedsheet, her mind still somewhere between Alex’s smile and the colours they talked about.

She finally got up and shuffled into the kitchen. The kettle hissed softly as it heated water. Beside the sink, a chipped mug with little daisies waited — the one her mum always used. Emilia reached for it without thinking.

The walls of the kitchen still wore the warm beige paint her parents had picked out. The tiny calendar on the fridge hadn’t been changed since last month. Emilia stared at it a while. June. Her mother had passed in June, two years after her dad.

It was quiet grief. Not loud. Not public. Just… always there.

She placed the mug down and opened the back door, stepping into the garden barefoot. Dew clung to the grass. Her father used to say the plants always whispered secrets in the morning. She knelt beside a cluster of roses, brushing away dead leaves. The red ones were fading, but the pale pinks were holding on.

She smiled. Mum would have said they had more to say.

After breakfast, Emilia grabbed her bag and stepped outside. It wasn’t just the library calling her this time. She wanted to paint. She wanted to move. She wasn’t sure if it was Alex’s story, his eyes, or simply the way he listened — but something inside her had shifted.

At the bus stop, she saw Lola from down the street. She hadn’t seen her in weeks.

“Girl, is that you?” Lola called out, already walking over with a wide grin.

Emilia laughed. “It’s me. I’m still alive.”

“Barely,” Lola said, linking arms with her. “You disappeared. You always do this when you’re painting something deep or falling in love.”

Emilia rolled her eyes. “I’m not falling in love. Please.”

“Mhm,” Lola smirked. “So what’s his name?”

“I didn’t say there was a him.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re glowing. Your cheeks never lie.”

Emilia tried to hide her smile, failing terribly. She felt seen and called out all at once.

“It’s just someone I met at the library. Nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious yet. That’s how it starts. Then boom, you’re texting nonstop and naming colours after his voice.”

They both laughed.

They got off near the market. Lola was heading to her job at the boutique. Emilia promised to stop by sometime.

“Don’t get too caught up in your artist bubble,” Lola warned, wagging her finger playfully. “And don’t overthink it. Let it happen.”

“Let what happen?”

Lola grinned. “Whatever it is. That colour in your cheeks didn’t come from paint, babe.”

Emilia headed to the library again.

This time, she didn’t rush. She passed a group of teenagers hanging around outside the community centre. One of them had headphones on and was sketching something on a notebook. Emilia peeked as she walked past — shades of purple, an eye with tears in the corners.

She made a mental note to leave her old pastels at the free art shelf next week. Somebody else might need them more than she did.

Inside the library, everything felt familiar now.

Mrs Johnson waved from the desk. “Morning Emilia. You look well rested.”

“I am,” Emilia smiled, walking past her.

Alex wasn’t there yet, but she didn’t mind. She curled up in the same window seat and opened her sketchbook. She let her pencil move freely — curves, clouds, soft shapes that didn’t need to be anything yet.

She hadn’t felt this light in weeks.

And somewhere deep inside, she hoped Alex would come walking through that door.

Emilia had just begun shading the corner of a large cloud when she felt a presence nearby — quiet, familiar.

She looked up. Alex.

His shirt was wrinkled again. A different one this time. Navy blue. His eyes looked like he hadn’t slept much, but he smiled when he saw her.

“Hey,” he said.

Emilia smiled. “You came back.”

“I said I would.” He held up a coffee cup. “And I brought bribery.”

She laughed, motioning for him to sit. “You’re forgiven.”

They sat side by side again, just like before. Comfortable. Easy. The library hum carried on around them.

Alex handed her a folded paper from his bag. “I printed the story. Didn’t want to just send it on a screen.”

Emilia took it carefully, as though it might crumble. “You really wrote all this?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. It’s a bit messy. The second half... well, it’s still finding itself.”

She nodded, flipping through the pages slowly. His handwriting — small and a bit rushed — filled the margins with notes, arrows, question marks.

“‘The boy who escaped into colour,’” she read aloud. “That title alone makes me want to cry.”

Alex smiled, but his eyes were far away. “It’s kind of about Daniel, actually.”

Emilia looked up. “Daniel?”

“My brother. Sort of. We grew up together. He was always... louder. Braver. But art was his thing too, until—” he paused, pulling his sleeve down a little. “He left. A while ago.”

Emilia didn’t push. She just nodded. Sometimes people don’t want to be saved. They just want someone to sit beside them, quietly.

Alex tapped his fingers against the table. “I haven’t told many people about him. I guess the story is how I process it.”

“I get that,” Emilia said softly. “I do that with colour. My mum used to say I painted with my heart.”

“She sounds wise.”

“She was,” Emilia said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “She was everything.”

They sat with that for a while. No one needed to fill the silence.

Emilia reached into her folder and pulled out a few loose sheets, smudged at the corners with faint streaks of pastel and pencil. “I started something based on what you said last time,” she said, not quite looking at Alex, as if showing someone her unfinished thoughts made her a bit shy.

Alex leaned in, his elbow almost touching hers. He studied the soft shapes she’d drawn washes of blue, streaks of grey with little bursts of orange pushing through, like sunlight trying to break through fog.

“This,” he said after a pause, “this feels like the part in the story where everything goes quiet. Where the boy finally breathes.”

Emilia smiled faintly. “That’s what I was going for, I think.”

They didn’t speak for a bit. Just passed a few more pages between them, sometimes nodding, sometimes scribbling a word or two in the margins. There wasn’t a need to fill every silence. Some people are just easy to sit with.

Before he left, Alex scribbled something on the back of a library receipt and handed it to her.

“Next time, I’ll bring the music.”

He didn’t explain what that meant. Emilia didn’t ask.

She stood by the library steps as he walked off down the street, his hand tucked in his pocket, the evening light softening everything around him.

The colours in her mind were louder now.

As Emilia packed up her sketchbook, she noticed something tucked between the pages of Alex’s printed story — a small, folded photo.

It was old, slightly torn at the corner. Two boys, one with messy hair like Alex's, the other smiling with a dimple she didn’t recognise. They were standing in front of a mural. Bright colours behind them. Joy on their faces.

She frowned a little, unsure if Alex meant to leave it there.

There was something written on the back in smudged pen.

"We made it through, didn't we?" — D.

Emilia stared at it for a moment, her fingers pausing.

Something about the smile on the other boy’s face stayed with her, even after she closed the book.