COLD UNTIL YOU

CHAPTER 9: SEASONS BETWEEN

Time has a strange way of stretching and folding depending on what the heart remembers. For Eliana, Florence became a second heartbeat. The cobblestone streets and ochre rooftops taught her to see beauty in imperfection. She spent her mornings painting the slow ripples of the Arno River, and her evenings wandering through galleries that whispered lessons in color and patience. Every brushstroke was both freedom and remembrance. She often caught herself painting faces that resembled Adrian’s never intentionally, but as if her memory had developed a life of its own.

Months passed. She made new friends, shared laughter that felt easy, and even allowed herself to enjoy the admiration of a fellow artist named Luca, who carried an energy as bright as the Tuscan sun. Luca was kind and persistent in a gentle way, but Eliana’s heart still kept a small locked room that no one else could enter. When he asked one evening whether she still loved someone back home, she smiled sadly and said, “Love doesn’t disappear. It just waits quietly until it’s ready to be seen again.”

Back at Northfield, Adrian was changing in ways even he couldn’t explain. He began volunteering as a tutor, spending hours helping younger students in literature and composition something he never would have done before. His once-cold demeanor had softened, replaced by thoughtfulness and an awareness of others. Still, some nights, when the world was quiet and the campus lights blurred in the rain, he missed her fiercely. He had deleted her number more than once, only to type it again and never press send.

The seasons kept moving summer into autumn, autumn into winter and with each change came a different kind of understanding. Eliana learned that distance can heal what closeness once hurt. Adrian learned that remorse only has meaning if it leads to transformation. And though they lived separate lives, both felt a quiet tether connecting them across oceans, invisible but unbreakable.

One night, after completing her final exhibition, Eliana received a message from the university back home, an invitation to display her art in a special alumni showcase. She hesitated before accepting. Returning to Northfield meant confronting memories she had both cherished and escaped. But something deep inside told her it was time. Florence had taught her to paint without fear. Maybe Northfield would teach her to live without regret.