Title: “Beneath the Willow Tree” Chapter One: The First Glance (Continued) part 3
739 Words
The rest of the week passed like a quiet melody—slow, gentle, and filled with moments that stretched time itself. Elena hadn’t expected Elmridge to feel so familiar, so full of echoes. Each morning she woke in her childhood bed, and each morning she found herself walking, almost subconsciously, to the willow tree. She would sit beneath it, sometimes alone, sometimes with Noah, sometimes with a sketchpad resting on her knees, blank except for one soft pencil line she had yet to erase.
Noah met her there more often than not. Sometimes he brought coffee; sometimes, he brought stories of townspeople or memories they hadn’t shared in years. There was never a plan, and there didn’t need to be. Their conversations meandered the way rivers do, soft and winding.
One morning, as sunlight dappled the grass beneath the willow, Noah arrived holding a paper bag. Elena raised a brow.
“What’s this?”
“You’ll see,” he said with a grin.
He opened the bag to reveal two blueberry scones from the bakery, still warm. Elena broke off a piece and tasted it.
“You remembered,” she said, surprised.
“You used to say blueberry scones tasted like summer. I figured it was time to bring summer back.”
She smiled, but something in her gaze turned inward. Noah noticed.
“What is it?”
Elena stared ahead, the distant hills shimmering in the morning sun.
“Do you ever wonder what we would’ve been if I hadn’t left?”
Noah took a deep breath, considered.
“All the time. But then I remember… the person I am now, the person you are now—maybe we had to go through those years apart to be ready for whatever this is.”
She turned to him. “And what is this?”
He looked back at her, steady and calm.
“It’s a new page.”
That evening, Elena found herself back in her room, sketchpad open. Her fingers moved as if guided by muscle memory, recreating the lines of Noah’s face from a decade ago, then reshaping them to reflect the man she had met again. The shadows under his eyes, the curve of his smile, the way he looked at her now—more certain, more patient.
Her mother poked her head in later.
“I haven’t seen you draw in years,” she said.
“Neither have I,” Elena replied.
Her mother entered the room, sitting gently on the edge of the bed.
“You know,” she said, “when you left, I was proud. I was scared too, but mostly proud. You were chasing something. But I always thought there was something here you were running from.”
Elena looked up. “I wasn’t ready for what this town meant. What he meant.”
“And now?”
She looked out the window at the silhouette of the willow tree swaying in the moonlight.
“Now, I want to stop running.”
The following day, Noah invited her to his studio. It was a loft above the old bookstore, filled with light and the scent of oil paint. Canvases lined the walls, some covered with sheets, others halfway finished. One in the corner caught Elena’s eye.
“That’s me,” she whispered, stepping closer.
It was her, standing beneath the willow, her arms wrapped around herself, the wind in her hair.
“I painted it five years ago,” Noah said behind her.
She turned. “You remembered me like this?”
“No,” he said. “I dreamed of you like this.”
She swallowed hard, touched.
They spent the afternoon painting side by side. Elena, tentative at first, loosened up as her lines took form. Laughter spilled between them as they shared old jokes and mixed new colors. Hours passed without notice.
At one point, Noah paused, brush mid-air.
“You should stay, you know. For good.”
Elena met his gaze. “I’m thinking about it.”
He smiled. “Well, think faster.”
They leaned into each other then, and for the first time in ten years, their lips met. Not with urgency, but with familiarity, as if they were resuming a conversation paused mid-sentence.
Afterward, Elena rested her forehead against his.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Now,” he said, “we build something new. Together.”
End of Chapter One
- Writer
