Love across the miles
1486 Words
Chapter Six: Love Across the Miles
The day Adrian left, the city felt different.
Lila walked with him to the train station, carrying a small travel bag he insisted was too heavy for her. The platform smelled of iron and rain, and a low winter wind rattled the overhead signs.
He held her hands, memorizing the tiny freckle near her thumb, the way her nails curved in perfect half-moons.
“I’m terrified,” he confessed softly, his eyes bright with emotion.
Lila brushed a tear off his cheek. “Of what?”
“Of leaving the one place I finally felt safe.”
She swallowed around the ache in her chest. “Then take that place with you. It lives right here,” she tapped his chest, then smiled, even though it hurt. “And besides, Berlin will give you stories. Bring them back to me.”
He pulled her into a hug, warm and solid and heartbreakingly familiar. When the conductor called final boarding, he kissed her—slow, lingering, like a promise—and stepped onto the train.
Lila stood on the platform until the cars pulled away, carrying half her heart with them.
---
The first few days without Adrian were brutal.
Lila found herself reaching for an extra teacup in the morning, forgetting he wasn’t there. She found his pencil on the shop counter and burst into tears. The emptiness in the store was loud, even with customers coming and going.
But she kept busy.
She reopened the bookstore as The Ink Room, a name they’d chosen together. She painted the back wall with a giant quote—“Stories live where hearts dare to feel.” She set up a small stage for poetry readings and art shows.
At night, she wrote him long letters on creamy stationery, pouring out every detail of her days: the scent of cinnamon bread from the bakery next door, the toddler who ran off with a fairy tale book, the couple who got engaged right in the poetry aisle.
And every few days, a letter arrived from Berlin.
---
Dear Lila,
This city is a thousand stories stacked on cobblestones. The light here is different—harsh, but honest. I sketched the train station today and thought of you on the platform, smiling even as your heart was breaking. I miss you.
Always, A.
---
His letters were beautiful, full of messy sketches and half-finished poems. He described painting under a glass ceiling, attending art lectures in German, sitting alone in cafés and sketching the world.
They made a ritual of writing every Sunday. She’d read his letter in the quiet of the store before opening the doors, letting his words feel like an arm around her shoulders.
---
Two months passed.
The Ink Room began to bloom. People loved the poetry nights. Kids curled up in the reading corner. An elderly man started a chess club in the afternoon. Lila realized she had built not just a bookstore, but a home for people who needed one.
Still, at night, she missed Adrian terribly.
---
One Friday, after closing, Lila found a letter from him that was different. His handwriting was shaky, and the words felt raw.
---
Dear Lila,
Sometimes, I feel like I’m chasing ghosts here. Everyone expects me to be the next big thing. The pressure is crushing me. I see your face in every window, in every unfinished painting. I don’t know if I can do this without you.
I’m afraid.
A.
---
Her heart broke reading it. She wanted to grab the first plane to Berlin. But instead, she folded a fresh sheet of paper, took a deep breath, and wrote:
---
Dear Adrian,
Maybe you don’t have to do it without me. You have me. In every line you draw, in every color you choose. Remember how you taught me to be brave enough to try? It’s your turn. I’m still here, loving you, believing in you. Don’t come home yet—not until you’ve finished what you went to find.
We’re stronger than the distance.
Love always,
Lila
---
She sealed the letter with a pressed violet flower, something he’d once tucked in her hair, and sent it off with a shaky hope.
---
One month later, a surprise arrived.
Adrian sent her a package wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. Inside was a painting—a huge canvas. It showed the bookstore’s front window, light spilling out into the night, a figure reading behind the counter.
On the back, he’d written in messy charcoal:
“Home lives wherever you are.”
She pressed her lips to the canvas, tears hot on her cheeks, and whispered, “I love you, too.”
---
Chapter Seven: The Surprise Between Us
Spring crept slowly into Berlin. The trees in Tiergarten burst into pale green, and café tables spilled onto the sidewalks. Adrian stood in a sunlit studio, staring at a painting that had taken him three weeks and a hundred drafts to complete. It was different from anything he’d ever done.
It wasn’t a cityscape.
It wasn’t even a figure study.
It was Lila.
Not her face, exactly, but the feeling of her: a figure in a bookshop bathed in gold and lavender light, surrounded by flying pages like birds mid-flight. Her hands cradled a book open to a blank page.
The title painted across the bottom: “The Beginning Is Here.”
His instructor, a stern woman who rarely showed emotion, stood silently before it. Then she turned to Adrian, her voice soft for the first time.
“This… is your voice.”
---
That night, Adrian walked the length of the canal, clutching a letter he hadn’t mailed yet.
Lila had written to him the week before:
> The bookstore is hosting its first art night next month. I’ve saved the front display wall for something special. I don’t know what it is yet... but I know who it belongs to.
I miss you, A. But I’ve stopped counting the days. I’ve started dreaming of the one when you walk through that door again.
He read it under the moonlight, then pulled out his own reply.
---
Dear Lila,
I said I came here to find myself. But the truth is, I found myself the moment I met you. This place taught me how to paint again. But you—you taught me why I should.
I’ll be home soon. But not empty-handed.
I’m bringing everything you’ve given me... in color.
Always,
A.
---
Back in Brookstone, Lila stood inside The Ink Room, arms crossed, heart fluttering. The art night was one week away. The flyers were printed. The guests were confirmed. The wine and biscuits were ordered. But the wall she’d saved—the front wall, the one you saw the moment you entered—remained blank.
She stared at it for a long time. Then, slowly, she reached for a hammer and a nail. Above the empty wall, she hung a handwritten sign:
“Reserved: For the one who inspired it all.”
---
The night of the event arrived like magic.
The bookstore was glowing with fairy lights. Poets read verses to a small, mesmerized crowd. Artists displayed watercolor landscapes and pencil sketches on every wall. Music drifted softly from a string quartet in the corner.
Lila floated through it all, smiling, proud—but restless.
Her eyes kept darting to the door.
To the blank wall.
To the promise she hadn’t let herself speak aloud.
And then—
The bell above the door chimed.
Lila turned.
Adrian stood there, wearing the same dark coat from the day they met, holding a large, cloth-covered canvas in his arms.
She couldn’t move.
He smiled, breathless. “Hi.”
She blinked hard, holding back tears. “You’re early.”
He stepped inside. “No, I’m just… finally home.”
Gasps filled the room as he unveiled the painting.
The crowd applauded—but Lila didn’t hear them. All she saw was the canvas.
Herself, imagined in vivid color. The shop. The light. The birds of paper. A story unwritten. A beginning still unfolding.
She reached out and touched the edge of the frame like it might disappear.
“I painted this for you,” Adrian said, stepping close. “For everything you gave me, even when I didn’t know how to ask for it.”
Lila whispered, “You brought it home.”
He leaned closer. “I brought me home.”
And then, surrounded by strangers, candles, and the smell of ink and wine and flowers, he kissed her like it was the first time—slow, full of color.
The bookstore cheered, but they didn’t hear it.
For them, the world had faded away
, and all that remained was the feeling of arriving—finally—where they were always meant to be.
- Writer
