Windsor Academy's art building smelled like turpentine, coffee, and ambition.
Leon hadn't planned on coming here. But Felix had "accidentally" spilled juice on his blazer and "accidentally" reminded him there were spares in the student center. Next door to the art wing.
And somehow, Leon wandered in.
The room was quiet. Afternoon light spilled through the tall windows, casting golden rectangles across half-finished canvases and supply tables. The smell of wet paint clung to the air like memory.
Then he heard the scratching of charcoal.
He turned the corner—and there she was.
Evelyn stood in front of a tall canvas, one hand holding a sketchbook, the other tracing shadows with steady fingers. She was barefoot, earbuds in, unaware of the world.
Unaware of him.
⸻
Leon didn't speak. He watched.
She moved like someone dancing without music. Her strokes were deliberate, fierce. Not the soft, mysterious girl from the lawn or the dining hall.
This Evelyn was powerful.
Confident.
Alive.
And then, without warning—
She dropped her brush.
Startled, she turned—and saw him.
"Jesus," she said, pulling out one earbud. "Do you always sneak up on people in sacred spaces?"
Leon held up his hands. "I swear I was framed. Felix set me up."
She blinked. "That actually makes sense."
He nodded toward the canvas. "You're good."
Evelyn shrugged. "I'm obsessed."
Leon stepped closer, then froze.
Because the painting—
It wasn't abstract.
It wasn't still life.
It was a boy.
Dark-haired. Half-turned. Hands tucked into pockets. His face wasn't finished, but the posture… the angle…
It was him.
⸻
Evelyn saw where he was looking and immediately stepped in front of the canvas, blocking it.
"That's… nothing. Just a figure study."
Leon raised an eyebrow. "From memory?"
She looked away. "I sketch a lot of people on campus. You're kind of… symmetrical. Artistically speaking."
He smiled. "That's the most polite way I've ever been called average."
Evelyn laughed. The tension broke just a little.
⸻
They stood there in silence, surrounded by paint fumes and awkward honesty.
Leon looked at her. Really looked.
"You don't talk much, do you?" he asked gently.
"Neither do you," she replied.
He nodded.
Then, without planning to, he said—
"I used to think silence meant nothing. Now I think… maybe it means everything."
Evelyn tilted her head, watching him closely.
"That sounds like someone who's trying really hard not to say something."
Leon gave a small, crooked smile. "Maybe."
She turned back to her canvas. "Then don't say it. Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because things are more beautiful," she said softly, "when they're not ruined by timing."
⸻
Leon left the art room feeling like he'd just walked through a dream.
And in the pocket of his borrowed blazer,
he found a folded slip of paper he didn't remember putting there.
It had one line written in charcoal:
You can sit with me anytime. – E