Chapter Eight: Shadows Between Us
411 Words
Maya sat cross-legged on her bed, an untouched sketchpad on her lap. Her pencil hovered above the page, uncertain. She had drawn nothing in weeks, but today, her fingers itched. Still, all she managed were half-formed lines and hesitant curves.
There were too many feelings in her chest. Regret. Curiosity. Shame. Something softer, unnamed, blooming quietly and stubbornly.
She remembered the sound of his laugh.
It had caught her off guard. Luca's laugh — not loud, but full. It had unsettled her, stirred something she hadn’t realized she'd buried. She’d fled before it could rise too high.
She traced a circle on the page. Then another. Then paused.
“You saw him and ran,” she muttered, annoyed at herself.
A knock broke through the silence. Chika, of course.
Without waiting, her friend let herself in. “Tell me you didn’t just spend the whole day hiding again.”
“I wasn’t hiding,” Maya said.
“You were avoiding,” Chika replied, tossing herself onto the bed. “Difference in tone, same result.”
Maya didn’t argue. She handed Chika the sketchpad. “I thought I could draw today. I couldn’t.”
Chika flipped through the blank pages, then looked at her. “Why do you think that is?”
Maya shrugged, her eyes darting to the window. “Every time I try, I think about him.”
“Luca?”
She nodded, pressing her lips together.
Chika was quiet a moment. Then, “Is that a bad thing?”
“I don’t know. I think… I think I want to feel something again. But I’m afraid I’ll break if I do.”
Chika reached over and squeezed her hand. “Maya, you’ve already been through the breaking. What comes now is the healing.”
Across town, Luca was sitting on the floor of his living room, surrounded by canvases — most of them unfinished. He had one earbud in, a jazz tune humming low in the background. The painting in front of him was messy. Vibrant blues bleeding into quiet yellows, like sky meeting memory.
His phone vibrated. A message from Chika.
“She’s still thinking about it. About you.”
He didn’t reply. Not yet.
Instead, he dipped his brush in black paint and began outlining a silhouette he didn’t realize he’d already started drawing — a woman, standing just out of reach, face turned slightly away.
She looked like someone waiting for the courage to look back.
- Writer
