The Return
1895 Words
Chapter Seven: The Return
The sky was bleeding orange when Elena first saw him again.
She was walking home from the art studio, sketchbook tucked under her arm, her earbuds in, a soft instrumental melody keeping her company. She wasn’t expecting him. Not here. Not now. Not ever again in the middle of a Wednesday.
But there he was.
Aiden.
Standing on the other side of the street like a ghost from a better dream. His hair was longer. He looked a little leaner, a little older. And he was watching her like he was trying to memorize her face all over again.
She froze.
He smiled.
It wasn’t big. It wasn’t confident. It was small and hopeful and just a little broken.
She didn’t move.
He crossed the street slowly, backpack slung over his shoulder, like he’d been walking for miles. When he was a step away, he stopped. Didn’t reach for her. Didn’t speak yet. He just looked at her.
"Hi," he said softly.
Tears welled in her eyes before she could stop them. She shook her head, wiped at them, frustrated.
"I know," he said. "I should’ve called. But I wanted to surprise you. And… I didn’t think I could wait anymore."
She opened her sketchbook and wrote, her hand trembling:
"Why now?"
He took a deep breath.
"Because I realized that every good thing in my life started with you. And everything after felt like a countdown. I thought I could handle the distance. I thought ambition was more important. But nothing compares to this—being here, with you."
She stared at him, expression unreadable.
"I transferred back," he added. "Talked to the dean. Had to fight my dad. But I’m staying. For good."
Elena's breath caught. Her hands flew as she signed, quickly, passionately.
Are you serious?
He nodded.
You came back... for me?
"For you. For me. For us."
Her sketchbook dropped. Her arms flung around his neck, and he held her tighter than he ever had.
He whispered into her hair, "God, I missed you."
She pulled back and kissed him—fierce and fast and full of the pain of months apart.
---
Later, they sat on the rooftop again. The sky was turning navy, stars peeking through the dusk.
Aiden was holding her hand, fingers laced tightly. Her head rested on his shoulder.
"You never stopped drawing, did you?" he asked.
She shook her head. Then pulled her sketchbook into her lap.
She flipped through pages—his smile, his eyes, his silhouette walking away. And then, a page unlike the others.
It was blank.
"What’s this one?" he asked.
She signed slowly: This one was waiting.
He reached for her pencil.
"Then let’s draw something together."
She smiled, and they began to sketch side by side, two hands moving as one.
They didn’t need words.
They never did.Three months had passed since Aiden left.
Winter had melted into the early breath of spring, and Cresthill’s campus was beginning to blush with green. Students were shedding their heavy jackets, and the air was thick with anticipation—for finals, for summer, for change.
But for Elena, everything still felt frozen.
She had returned to her routine—the quiet corners of the library, her favorite seat near the west-facing window, the comfort of pencil on paper. But the world had lost its color. Even her drawings were duller now—shadows without depth, smiles without spark.
Aiden had called, at first. Sent messages. Emails. Videos of the beach. Of his new dorm. A bookstore he thought she’d love. But over time, the messages came less often. The calls grew shorter. She never blamed him—not truly. Distance wasn’t easy. But it hurt all the same.
Still, she never stopped writing to him.
Each day, she wrote a letter. She never mailed them, just folded each one and tucked it into a small wooden box she kept beneath her bed. It was almost a ritual. Each page held the words she couldn’t say aloud. Some were filled with longing. Others with anger. Some were just blank pages she pressed her fingertips to, as if he might feel her from wherever he was.
One letter read:
> “Dear Aiden,
Today, I passed the music room and heard someone singing a song I think you would’ve made fun of. I laughed. It scared me—how laughing without you feels like betrayal.
But I laughed anyway.”
Another said:
> “Dear Aiden,
I dreamt of the rooftop again. You were painting the sky with your hands. I was watching, holding the stars in a jar. When I woke up, my pillow was wet.”
And another:
> “Dear Aiden,
Are you forgetting me?”
---
One Sunday morning, Elena’s mother knocked gently on her door.
"There’s mail for you."
Elena tilted her head. She didn’t get mail. But when she saw the envelope, her heart skipped. Her name was scrawled in familiar handwriting.
Inside was a single page:
> “El,
Sorry I’ve been distant. Things have been crazy here. Classes are harder than I expected. My dad’s been breathing down my neck. I miss you.
I know that’s not enough. I don’t know how to say it better. I miss you in a way that hurts.
I’ll call soon. I promise.
—A”
She held the letter against her chest. It was small. It was late. But it was something.
That night, she didn’t write a letter.
She just stared at the ceiling, whispering his name to the quiet.The days that followed were painted in uncertainty.
Aiden didn’t sit at their table the next afternoon. Or the one after that. Elena waited, her sketchbook open, her pencil idle between her fingers. She told herself she wasn’t waiting, but every time the library door creaked open, her heart betrayed her.
It had been three days since he told her. Three days since the rain fell on both of them like judgment. She hadn’t told her mother, hadn’t even drawn much. Her world—once small, but full of warmth—suddenly felt colder than ever.
She didn’t know if he had made a decision. If the transfer was happening. If she would ever get to say goodbye properly.
But on the fourth day, he returned.
He walked in slowly, his steps hesitant, and his eyes found hers instantly. There were shadows beneath them, like he hadn’t slept. Like he’d been carrying the same weight she had.
She didn’t smile. Neither did he.
He sat across from her and pulled out a small stack of notes he hadn’t given her. One by one, he laid them on the table, each folded with the same neat care. She stared at them without reaching.
Finally, he wrote:
"I needed time. I didn’t want to come back and lie."
She wrote back:
"Are you going?"
He hesitated.
"They’re pushing for it. My dad already filed transfer papers. It’s a better school, better connections, better future."
Her fingers tightened around her pencil.
"But it’s not better for me."
He looked up. There was something raw in his expression now.
"I don’t want to leave you, Elena. That’s the truth. I don’t want to lose what we have."
She blinked, rapidly. Her hand moved.
"Then don’t."
He leaned forward, frustration slipping into his features.
"It’s not that easy. My dad’s invested in this. He thinks I’m wasting potential here. That I’m distracted."
Her brows furrowed.
"Am I a distraction to you?"
He looked stunned. Then slowly, he shook his head.
"You’re the only real thing I’ve had in a long time."
The library was too quiet for their storm, and so, they took their conversation elsewhere. The walk through Cresthill’s courtyard was quiet but charged. They didn’t hold hands this time.
---
They ended up on the rooftop of the old art building. It was a place only Elena knew—a place she went to draw when the walls felt too close.
The sky stretched endlessly above them, heavy with clouds, just like their hearts.
"My mom doesn’t know about you," Aiden said, sitting against the brick wall. "Neither does my dad. I don’t tell them much. They don’t listen anyway."
Elena sat beside him, pulling her knees to her chest. She handed him her sketchbook.
On the page was a drawing of him, looking out a window, headphones around his neck, a storm outside. He was smiling—but barely.
"Is that how you see me?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Then I must really be a mess."
She shook her head and pointed to the sky in the picture.
"You always see light," she wrote beneath the drawing.
He was quiet for a long time. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper:
"I wish I could see it now."
---
The following days were a delicate balance of routine and rupture. Aiden showed up more, but not every day. Elena pretended not to notice how his smiles took longer to reach his eyes. She filled her sketchbook with fragments of them—his hands, his laugh, the slope of his shoulder when he leaned in close.
Their time was running out.
Everyone around them was preparing for exams, deadlines, final presentations. But Elena and Aiden were counting moments.
One afternoon, he brought her a gift.
A charm bracelet. Simple. Silver. On it, a tiny book charm, and beside it, a miniature pencil.
He placed it in her palm.
"So you remember," he said. "So you know I never forgot."
She touched it gently, then pulled him into a hug. A silent one. One that said all the things she couldn’t.
---
The last week came like a tidal wave.
She tried to be brave. Tried not to show the ache in her eyes when he talked about packing. About how his dad had already booked the flight. How his new dorm was closer to the coast. How he’d send her pictures of the ocean.
She didn’t want pictures.
She wanted him here.
On their last day, they met at the rooftop again. The sky was clear this time, stars blinking softly overhead.
"Say something," he said.
She opened her journal, hands shaking.
"If I could scream, I would scream your name until it echoes through every hallway. If I could sing, I’d write songs that only your heart could understand. But all I can do is draw you. Love you silently. And hope you’ll still hear me even when you’re gone."
He closed the notebook, gently.
"I will. I promise I will."
He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear.
And then he kissed her.
It was slow. Careful. Soft. A moment suspended in the night air.
When it ended, they stood forehead to forehead.
"You were never a distraction, Elena," he whispered. "You were the reason I stayed this long."
She signed with trembling fingers: I love you.
His breath caught. Then he signed it back.
I love you too.
---
He left the next morning.
She didn’t go to the airport. She didn’t need to. The goodbye had already happened.
But she kept the bracelet. And the notes. And every sketch she had drawn of him.
And she kept writing.
Because even in silence, love doesn’t disappear.
It waits. It listens.
It endures.
- Writer
