Setting: A quiet evening. Rain taps against the windows. Eiran find her in the library, staring at a closed journal in her lap.
Eiran found her in the sanctuary's small library—a quiet space nestled between the café and the guest cottages. The storm outside was gentle but steady, like nature was whispering softly through the glass.
She sat curled up on the window seat, a heavy gray blanket around her shoulders, and a leather-bound journal resting in her lap. She didn't look up when he entered.
But she knew he was there.
"You ever keep something locked up so long… you're afraid of what will happen if you open it?"
Eiran sat down on the floor beside her, his back against the bookshelf.
"All the time," he said. "But I've learned something."
She looked at him—curious, waiting.
"Some rooms stay dark until we let someone in with us."
Aira was quiet for a long moment. Then she opened the journal.
Her Story
"My father was a musician," she said. "A quiet man. Gentle. But fragile in a way the world never had patience for."
She ran her fingers along the edge of a page.
"He disappeared when I was thirteen. No note. No explanation. Just gone. Everyone assumed he abandoned us. But I couldn't believe that. Not really."
She showed him a page—water-damaged, the ink slightly smudged. A sketch of a tree. A song fragment.
"I kept this journal to remember him. But I stopped writing in it the day I realized I might never know the truth."
Her voice trembled now.
"And the day I stopped… I stopped trusting myself, too."
Eiran reached up—not to take the journal, but to gently cover her hand with his.
"You kept his memory alive. That takes more strength than closure ever could."
Tears welled in her eyes, not from sadness alone—but from relief.
"You always know the one thing I need to hear," she whispered.
"No," he said. "I just listen."
And for the first time, Aira leaned fully into him—her head on his shoulder, his arms gently around her. Not as a rescue.
As an anchor.
🌙 After That Night
She began to write in the journal again.
Not just memories. Dreams. Little notes. Pieces of this new life they were building together.
And in the last page of the week, he found something she left for you:
"I no longer fear the rooms in my heart.Because someone finally walks through them… without flinching."— A