The fireplace crackled softly in the living room, casting warm flickers of light across the old stone walls. Most of the family had gone to sleep, their laughter and noise replaced by the hush that always follows a gathering once the wine runs out and the memories grow quiet.
Lydia sat cross-legged on the floor near the fire, a worn blanket draped over her shoulders, her sketchbook open in her lap. She hadn't drawn anything yet. Her pencil rested against the paper like it was waiting for permission to begin.
Across the room, Max leaned against the arm of the sofa, half-turned toward her, legs stretched out in front of him, one hand lazily spinning the ring on his finger — the one he always wore, even though it had no story. Or maybe it did, and he just never told her.
She glanced up. His eyes were already on her.
"You don't sleep early anymore?" she asked, not looking at him directly.
Max shrugged. "Not when you're here."
Her heart stuttered. He said it like it meant nothing. Like it was just a thought.
But she felt the weight of it. Quiet. Real.
"You still spin that ring when you're thinking too much," she said, changing the subject without really changing it.
He smiled. "You still act like you're not watching me."
Silence.
Lydia dropped her gaze. The pencil trembled slightly between her fingers. She pressed it to the paper, drawing the first line without looking.
It curved downward - soft, incomplete.
"You know," Max said, his voice low, "I used to wonder if I was imagining it."
She looked up.
"Imagining what?"
He met her eyes, and for a second the room felt too small.
"You," he said. "The way you looked at me sometimes. The way you'd laugh differently when I said something stupid. I used to think maybe I made it all up."
Her chest tightened. She gripped the sketchbook like it could hold her together.
He wasn't guessing anymore.
He knew.
And still-he didn't say the word.
She could have told him right then. She could've said,
"You didn't imagine it. I was always afraid."
But fear has a cruel way of making people quiet.
And love... even crueler.
So she simply asked, "And now?"
Max's voice dropped softer.
"Now I wonder if you ever felt the same."
Her throat ached. Her fingers had stopped drawing.
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was full. Of years. Of glances. Of things they could never take back.
Then he stood slowly and walked towards her.
She looked up, unsure.
He reached down and gently closed the sketchbook in her lap. "You should sleep."
Lydia swallowed. "Maх..'
He paused.
But she couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't push the words through the storm in her chest.
So he just nodded, like he understood what she couldn't say. And walked away.
Leaving her there by the fire — wide awake, heart thudding, lips parted with a confession that had no voice.