Chapter 6 – Painting the Unseen
The silence between Ava and Eli wasn't heavy—it was intimate. Comfortable. Fragile.
That evening, the therapy center felt quieter than usual. The rain had stopped, but its ghost lingered in damp windowpanes and the smell of wet soil. Ava sat cross-legged on the floor of the old studio room, a blank canvas propped before her, brushes scattered like fallen leaves. Eli sat near the piano, his fingers brushing the keys now and then, as if searching for something between notes.
"You're painting again," he said softly, not a question.
Ava glanced at him, surprised. "How did you—?"
"I hear it. The way your breath catches when the brush touches canvas. The rhythm of your strokes. Your silence is louder when you're creating."
Her throat tightened. No one had ever described her so perfectly without even seeing her. "I don't know what I'm painting yet. I just… hear your music still."
He tilted his head, listening. "Tell me what you see."
Ava hesitated, brush suspended mid-air. "It's not what I see. It's what I feel when you play. Your music… it starts soft, like someone walking barefoot on broken glass. Careful. Hurting. But then it rises. It fights back."
Eli said nothing, but his fingers found a key and pressed down. A soft note. A fragile heartbeat.
Ava dipped the brush into a dark blue and pulled it across the canvas. "I want to paint that fight. That ache. But I want it to have light too. Hope."
There was a pause, and then Eli asked, almost in a whisper, "Why?"
She paused mid-stroke. "Because if your music can survive the dark… maybe so can I."
The room was quiet again, but it wasn't empty.
Ava continued painting. Colors bled together—blues, grays, the occasional pulse of crimson. Eli played quietly now, as though composing in response to her brushstrokes. Their art and sound danced together, invisible yet deeply seen. Heard.
He turned his head toward her. "Can I… touch it? When it's done?"
Ava's chest ached. "Of course. But I don't think it'll ever really be done."
"Good," he whispered. "Some things aren't meant to end."