What Remains of Quiet
Starling's POV
The city was still trembling from the rain.
Thirty minutes had passed since the last guest left the gallery, yet the sound of footsteps, voices, and music still echoed faintly in Starling's mind. The champagne glasses stood abandoned on white tablecloths, the air still humming with the scent of paint, lilies, and wet pavement.
The exhibition had ended, but the night hadn't. Not for her.
She stood near the far window, arms wrapped loosely around herself, watching the last of the streetlights reflect against the puddled pavement outside. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, turning the world to watercolor.
Her reflection looked tired like a stranger who'd borrowed her body for the evening. Her lipstick had faded, her hair clung damply to her temple, and there was a faint tremor in her hand she couldn't quite control.
Elijah's words still lingered, low and cutting, like the aftertaste of a memory that refused to dissolve.
You never changed your style. Still painting feelings you shouldn't.
It shouldn't have mattered.
It did.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The air smelled of varnish and rain and endings. The kind of scent that stays long after someone's gone.
Her heart was still racing from the moment she'd turned and seen him standing there alive, real, unchanged except for the coldness in his eyes. It had been years, but in that instant, all the time she'd spent rebuilding herself felt paper thin.
She hated that.
Hated that one glance could unravel her.
By the time she got home, the city was quieter. Her apartment waited in its usual stillness, paintbrushes soaking in cloudy water, unfinished canvases leaning like secrets against the wall.
She set down her keys and kicked off her heels. Her feet ached. Her chest ached more.
The adrenaline from the night had worn off, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that sleep wouldn't fix.
She moved to her easel, fingertips brushing across the fabric of her newest painting the one Elijah had seen. A blur of color, fractured shapes, two faces merging into shadow. He'd recognized it immediately.
It's us, isn't it?
She had pretended not to hear him. But the truth sat there in color and oil and silence.
It was them.
It had always been them.
She picked up a brush, hesitating. The palette beside her had dried, the colors dulled into muted memory. She wanted to repaint it to turn it into something else, something nameless and safe. But her hands wouldn't move.
Instead, she whispered, "Not tonight."
Her voice sounded small in the empty room.
When the knock came at the door, she almost didn't answer.
But then a familiar voice called out, warm and steady.
"Starling? You home?"
She blinked, startled, then opened the door to see Rin standing in the hallway a vision of quiet concern.
They wore a loose black coat and carried a small bag of takeout, hair still damp from the rain. There was something about Rin's presence that always steadied her, like a voice that reminded her the world hadn't completely fallen apart.
"I thought you'd still be at the after party," Rin said, stepping inside.
Starling shook her head. "I didn't feel like celebrating."
"Too many people, or too many ghosts?"
She smiled faintly, tired. "Both."
Rin set the takeout bag on the counter and began unpacking it without asking permission. That was their rhythm no explanations, no forced comfort. Just quiet understanding.
"I saw the reviews already," Rin said, handing her a steaming cup of miso soup. "You're glowing online. People are calling your work 'emotionally devastating.'"
Starling snorted softly. "That's one way to put it."
Rin studied her face. "And yet you look like someone who's been hollowed out."
"I just need to rest," she said quickly.
"Mm." Rin didn't press. They never did. Instead, they leaned against the counter, sipping their tea. "You saw him, didn't you?"
Starling froze.
"Who?"
"Don't," Rin said gently. "You forget I was there. I saw him leave. You went still the moment he walked in."
Starling exhaled, defeated. "I didn't expect him to come."
"No one ever expects ghosts," Rin murmured. "They just show up, rearrange your heartbeat, and vanish again."
Starling smiled weakly. "That's poetic."
"That's experience." Rin's tone was calm, but their eyes were kind. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. "There's nothing to say. He just… showed up. Said a few things. Left."
"And you?"
"What about me?"
"What did you do?"
She hesitated. "I stood there. I listened. And I realized I still don't know how to hate him properly."
Rin didn't respond right away. They just reached out, gently taking her hand and pressing it to the cup of soup. "Then start there," they said softly. "Don't rush to forget him. Just learn how to live with what's left."
They ate in silence for a while, the warmth of the food chasing away some of the chill. Outside, the rain began again, tapping gently against the window.
Starling watched the droplets slide down the glass. "You know what's strange?" she said quietly. "Everyone keeps saying I should be proud. That I made it. That I turned pain into something beautiful. But all I feel is tired."
Rin nodded slowly. "Because beauty doesn't heal. It just reminds you what healing looks like."
Starling let that sink in.
"I thought art would fix it," she confessed. "The betrayal, the loss, the constant wondering if I did something wrong. I thought if I poured it all into the canvas, I could leave it there. But every time I paint, it feels like I'm digging it back up."
Rin smiled sadly. "That's because art doesn't erase the wound it teaches you how to hold it."
Starling looked at them, eyes stinging. "And what if I don't want to hold it anymore?"
"Then you'll paint something else," Rin said simply. "One day, you'll pick up a brush and realize the colors have changed. That's how you'll know you're free."
She stared down at her half-empty bowl, their words echoing somewhere deep inside her.
After Rin left, the apartment felt less like a cave and more like a shell she could breathe in again.
She changed into loose clothes and tied her hair back, moving slowly through the space that had once felt like both home and exile.
On her desk lay the gallery brochure. She'd been avoiding it, but now she picked it up, flipping to the photo of her painting. There, in the corner, she saw it again Elijah's handwriting.
You once said art is how we remember. So tell me what are you trying not to forget?
Her thumb brushed over the ink. The words didn't sting as much now. They just… existed.
Maybe that was what healing looked like not erasing the past, but softening its edges.
She lit a candle, opened her sketchbook, and began to draw. Not him this time. Not pain.
She drew light.
The faint glow of dawn on wet streets.
The reflection of herself in a window.
The way the city sometimes looked like it was forgiving itself.
And for the first time in years, the silence didn't feel like punishment. It felt like space.
She worked until her hands ached, until the candle melted low. When she finally looked up, she realized the sky was beginning to pale the first blush of morning spreading across the horizon.
Starling set down her pencil and smiled to herself. It wasn't a smile of triumph, but of peace the kind that comes quietly, without warning, after too many nights of chaos.
She stood, stretching, and opened the window. The scent of rain and dawn washed in.
Somewhere below, the city exhaled.
Starling breathed with it.
And though she didn't know what tomorrow would bring whether Elijah would return, whether the past would stay buried she felt something small and alive inside her chest.
Hope.
It wasn't loud, but it was there.
And that was enough.