The evening air felt heavy, like the sky was holding back a storm too tired to fully arrive. Winter stood just outside the studio door, her hand hovering near the handle. Her fingers were cold — not from the weather, but from nerves, uncertainty, from the way Eleanor Blake's voice lingered in her head like a forgotten chord.
She didn't know what she was doing here.
Or maybe she did, and just didn't want to name it.
She opened the door quietly and stepped inside. The low light made everything feel suspended, like the room had paused in her absence. Canvases leaned in quiet reverence against the walls, ghostly in the lamplight. The scent of oil paint, lavender hand cream, and the faint tang of charcoal hit her in a wave of familiarity.
Eleanor sat at her desk near the back, her long frame bent over a sketchpad. Her reading glasses, a thin wire pair Winter had never seen her wear in class, perched on her nose. She looked older like this. Not aged—just real. Tired, maybe. Or careful.
"I thought you left," Eleanor said without looking up.
Winter hesitated in the doorway. "I did. I just… came back."
Eleanor raised her head slowly. Her eyes softened.
"Journal?"
Winter nodded. "Yeah."
"It's over there. You left it cracked open."
Winter found it where she'd last been sitting earlier that day. Her sketchbook was beside it, flipped to a blank page she didn't remember turning to. Her heart jumped.
"You didn't read it?"
Eleanor was quiet for a beat too long.
"Just the page it was on."
Winter closed the journal with a sharp sound. "You read about the dream."
"I did."
"I didn't mean for anyone to see that."
"I know."
Winter gripped the book to her chest and stared down at the floor. The silence between them stretched, thick and humming. It wasn't just embarrassment. It was exposure. Eleanor had seen something inside her that even Winter tried to deny — that clawing fear of being emptied out, of being invisible even to herself.
Eleanor's voice was soft when she spoke again. "You write beautifully."
"That's not the point."
"I think it is."
Winter sat down, placing the journal beside her.
She was angry, but not really at Eleanor. More at the way her walls kept collapsing around this woman. Eleanor was a slow storm — gentle, vast, unrelenting. And Winter had never learned to swim in feelings this deep.
"You make me feel like I'm being examined," Winter muttered.
Eleanor tilted her head. "Is that bad?"
"It is when I don't know what you're looking for."
"I'm not looking for anything."
Winter glanced over. "That's a lie."
Eleanor's lips pressed into a line. "What makes you think that?"
"Because every time I walk into a room, you stop breathing for a second."
Eleanor exhaled, sharply, as if the words themselves had punctured something.
"You're very observant," she said, folding her hands neatly in her lap.
"I'm an artist."
"Or maybe you're just used to looking for signs where there aren't any."
Winter stood and paced to the windows. The rain had started, drumming quietly on the glass. She pressed her forehead against the cool pane.
"I feel like I'm unraveling."
"Don't romanticize that," Eleanor said quietly behind her. "It's not poetic. It's dangerous."
Winter turned around. Her eyes were wide, furious, desperate. "Then stop it."
Eleanor stood now too. "You think I haven't tried?"
"Try harder."
The words echoed.
Neither moved.
They ended up on the couch, eventually. It was easier there. Neutral ground. Eleanor poured tea from a chipped white kettle she kept behind her desk. She moved with the care of someone who'd broken too many things before and now feared even touching what she loved.
Winter curled her legs beneath her and held the warm mug with both hands. Her pulse finally settled.
Eleanor sat on the far end.
"So," Winter said, voice steady now, "what happened to your wrist?"
Eleanor blinked. "Excuse me?"
"In class last week. You wore that dark sleeve. I saw the bruising."
Eleanor looked away. "That's personal."
"So am I."
That made Eleanor chuckle — tired, unwilling, fond.
"I was climbing a ladder in my apartment. Fell off the third step."
Winter raised a brow. "Elegant."
"Painfully so."
They shared a smile. The tension didn't disappear, but it softened.
Winter studied her over the rim of the mug. "You don't talk about your life much."
"I try not to."
"Why?"
"Because I have boundaries."
"Do I cross them?"
Eleanor didn't answer right away. "You stand on them. Barefoot. In the rain."
Winter laughed softly. "Then pull me inside."
Eleanor stared at her for a long moment. "I can't."
"Because of your job?"
"No. Because of who I am when I forget who I'm supposed to be."
Silence again.
Then:
"I was married once," Eleanor said suddenly. "For two years. It ended badly."
Winter's eyes widened.
"You don't wear a ring."
"I don't wear ghosts either."
"What happened?"
"We stopped loving each other quietly," she said. "The way you stop noticing the walls closing in until you can't breathe."
"Do you still believe in love?"
"I believe in risk."
"And me? What am I to you?"
Eleanor looked shattered for a moment, like something fragile had cracked under her ribs.
"You are everything I tell myself I shouldn't want."
The studio dimmed as the storm deepened, swallowing the remaining light. They stayed like that for a long time — not speaking, not needing to. The air between them was heavy, not with expectation, but with knowing. Mutual understanding. Shared ache.
Eventually, Winter stood.
"I should go."
Eleanor followed her to the door, but stopped before reaching it.
"Winter—"
Winter turned.
Eleanor's voice faltered. "This isn't a good idea. Any of it."
"I know."
"But it doesn't stop me from thinking about it."
Winter stepped closer. "That's what scares you."
"No," Eleanor said, very quietly. "That's what makes me feel alive."
Winter touched Eleanor's wrist — only for a second. Just enough to leave something behind. A pulse. A promise. A line neither had crossed yet, but both knew they would.
Eventually.
"I'll see you in class," Winter whispered.
And then she was gone, swallowed by the sound of thunder and the slow rhythm of her boots against the hallway tile.
Eleanor stayed by the door, unmoving.
She touched her wrist where Winter's fingers had just been.
And closed her eyes.