Chapter 14 - Tomorrow
403 Words
Gray’s POV
She was gone. And yet… not really.
The room still held her. The air still hummed with the echo of her voice. The sketchpad, her footsteps, the way she had leaned closer as if he might respond — all of it remained like fingerprints pressed into glass. He couldn’t see her anymore, but she hadn’t left him.
Not completely.
And for the first time in weeks, the darkness didn’t feel endless.
He listened to the sound of his family speaking — low voices, careful movements. Even they seemed changed somehow. Softer. Hopeful in ways they hadn’t dared to be before.
“Tomorrow, she said,” Isabel had murmured before she left. “She’s coming back.”
Tomorrow.
The word curled inside him, a fragile thing — too light to hold, too precious to ignore. He held onto it anyway. As if he could anchor himself to it. To her.
Sleep didn’t come easily now. His body drifted through patches of haze, but his mind stayed alert — no longer numb, no longer willing to fade. There was too much to wait for.
He imagined her at the art center. Smiling at children, fingers smudged with charcoal or paint. She was probably tired, maybe even unsure about returning. But she’d said she would. And that was more than he’d had in a long time.
In the quiet, he tried to remember her voice. The way it trembled slightly when she asked why she was here — like part of her already knew the answer but wasn’t ready to admit it. He wanted to tell her.
You’re here because you matter.
You’re here because I saw you — really saw you — before the world turned to static.
He imagined her sitting in that chair again, sketchpad in hand, eyes flicking up between lines. He imagined the brush of her fingers against the blanket or the sound of her quiet laugh.
He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. Maybe she’d walk in and everything would shift again. Maybe she’d sit in silence and leave early. Maybe she’d see him exactly as he was — broken, suspended in time — and choose not to return.
But if she did come back… He would fight.
More than he ever had.
Because she made him feel like he wasn’t just waiting anymore.
He was becoming.
And tomorrow —
Tomorrow meant he had something to become for.
- Writer
