CHAPTER 25
The afternoon light spilled across the room in streaks of gold, soft and warm, like it was trying to comfort her, Mia sat by the window, knees tucked up beneath her, a blanket draped loosely over her lap.
Her sketchbook lay open, untouched for the last half hour.
A pencil rested between her fingers, though her hand hadn't moved in a while.
It just hovered like she was waiting for something to rise inside her first.
She'd been watching the tiny, grey-bodied birds hopping along the stone ledge outside her window, pecking at crumbs she wasn’t sure how got there. She liked watching them.
Her eyes dropped slowly back to the page in front of her.
It was already halfway filled. Lines soft and dark sketched out the outline of two eyes. Wide set. Deep. Sharp at the outer corners. Familiar.
She hadn’t meant to draw them again.
But her hand did it before she could stop it.
She swallowed lightly. The air around her felt still, but heavier now. Like those eyes were staring back at her.
She blinked, her thumb brushed the edge of the page, gently smudging the graphite. She didn’t fix it. Instead, her pencil started moving again.
A small curve above the right brow. That...that scar. She remembered that.
It had been faint, but visible the kind of detail most people wouldn’t notice.
But she had. Just like she remembered his gaze, the way it had landed on her with the weight of something.
.. knowing. She traced the shape of his brow, the line of his nose straight, defined, not too sharp. He had a strong jaw, too.
Mia pressed the pencil down just a little harder, shaping the curve of his mouth. Her fingers moved slowly, carefully, as if afraid of drawing him wrong as if her memory might slip away if she wasn't gentle enough.
She remembered him clearly.
His eyes, especially. The stillness in them. The way they didn’t flinch when they landed on her.
She'd stood frozen in her brother’s hallway and he hadn’t looked away. He didn’t try to soften or speak, He just watched.
And somehow, she hadn’t wanted to look away either.
That’s what stayed with her.
That stillness.
And the ache in her chest she didn’t understand.
She swallowed.
This was… strange.
She didn’t know this man. Not his name. Not his voice. Nothing.
But her hands remembered.
They knew the shapes, the angles. The feeling he gave her still lingering in her skin like something she couldn’t scrub off.
Her chest tightened.
Who was he?
And why couldn’t she stop thinking about the way he looked at her
She exhaled softly and kept drawing.
Her pencil slipped lower, sketching the hollow of his cheek, the slight tension in his jaw. She remembered that too, how he looked restrained like someone holding back a thousand things he couldn’t say.
And now here she was, sketching him. Rebuilding his face from a memory that wouldn’t leave her alone.
She leaned back a little and looked down at the sketch.
It wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t trying to make it perfect.
But it was him.
And somehow, that made her heart race.
She stared at the face on the page, breathing slow and careful.
Why him?
Why had that one moment stayed in her head like a secret she didn’t know how to keep?
Mia startled when she heard a knock at the door.
She quickly pulled the sketchbook closer to her chest like it might give away something she couldn’t name. Her pencil dropped to the floor with a faint clink as she hurriedly tucked the sketchbook in the pile of her books
Then Grayson’s voice came, calm as always. “May I come in?”
Mia blinked, her heart still thudding where it shouldn’t have been.
“…Yeah.”
The door creaked open, and Grayson stepped inside, notebook under his arm, sleeves rolled, and a warm patience in his face that never changed. He scanned the room just the way he always did. Then he smiled gently.
“You look cozy,” he said.
Mia nodded, tucking her feet under the blanket more tightly. She didn’t say anything else.
Grayson didn’t push. He pulled the chair closer to the small table by the window and set his things down. “We’ll keep it light today,” he said, glancing at her again. “Something familiar. You okay with literature?”
“Mmhm.” It was barely a sound.
Grayson opened his notebook, flipping past a few pages. He paused, then asked casually, “What were you working on before I came in?”
Her fingers clutched around themselves a little tighter. “Nothing,” she said too quickly biting her lips nervously
He looked up at her, but didn’t push even though he could sense she was lying.
"Okay.”
Grayson handed her a copy of the poem they were studying. Something short and gentle old english essays, poems and soft rhythms. Usually, she liked these.
But today, the words blurred.
Her eyes skimmed the page, but nothing sank in.
She was still seeing him.
His eyes, especially his eyes, she couldn't get them out of her head, they were dark, so dark and chilly, a cold rush ran down her spine making her shiver.
“Mia?”
She blinked.
Grayson’s voice pulled her back.
“Can you read the first two lines out loud for me?”
She looked at the page again. Her fingers fumbled to find where the poem started.
“Oh… um…” She cleared her throat quietly. “The quiet river bends through stone and shade… its song unheard but never lost or late…”
Grayson nodded. “Good.”
She stopped there.
Silence crept in again.
Grayson leaned forward slightly, voice lower. “You sure you’re okay?”
Mia hesitated. Then nodded, slow.
“I’m just…” she paused, trying to find the right word. “Thinking.”
He studied her for a second. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Her eyes dropped to her lap.
“No.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t ask again. Just shifted his chair, and continued reading the next few lines himself.
Mia stared out the window instead.
But even the birds didn’t distract her now.
All she could see was the sketch the one she’d secretly tucked behind a stack of books on her desk, face down. And still, somehow, she could feel it staring back at her.
She didn’t know if she was supposed to feel like this warm and shaky and confused all at once. But she did.
Grayson’s voice moved gently through the room calm, deliberate like it always did when he read. Mia listened, but only partly. The sound washed over her in quiet waves, but the words never really made it inside.
She nodded when he paused, even though she hadn’t heard what he said.
She shifted her legs beneath the blanket and looked down at the page again, but the ink was starting to blur around the edges.
A flicker of movement pulled at her attention. Grayson reached to underline something on the page between them, his pen making a soft, steady scratch against the paper.
Mia followed the sound.
And then the silence stretched again, not awkward, just long enough for her thoughts to start drifting again.
“You want to stop early?” Grayson’s spoke once he realized she wasn't paying attention.
She blinked. Startled
“…Yeah.”
He closed the book without hesitation. “We’ll pick up tomorrow.”
She nodded again.
Grayson stood, gathered the papers, and gave her a final glance. A soft one.
“If you want to talk, Mia, I'm always here for you” he said,
She nodded then added softly smiling " thank you Grayson.
But after the door closed and the room went quiet again, Mia sat there for a long time, unmoving.
She exhaled through her nose and finally reached for her sketchbook again, her hand slow.
She didn’t open it yet.
Just held it.