Chapter 23: Kites We Never Flew
The attic was warmer than usual.
Not from the weather, but from something else—an invisible thread of memory and quiet longing that seemed to live between the floorboards. Dust drifted like soft snow through the sunbeams slanting in from the small round window at the top. Time didn't move here, not like it did downstairs. Here, the air carried the weight of years.
Anya stood near a stack of cardboard boxes, each one marked in crooked handwriting.
Old Paintings.
Things to Forget.
Summer (almost).
Oriana stood at the door, hesitant.
"Are you sure I can be in here?" she asked.
Anya turned, smiling. "If you weren't meant to be here, the door wouldn't have let you in."
Oriana laughed softly. "I didn't know doors made moral decisions."
"This one does. It's been here longer than either of us. It knows."
Oriana stepped in slowly, careful not to disturb anything, though her presence itself seemed to calm the space rather than stir it.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
Anya crouched down and opened the box labeled Things to Forget.
"Something I didn't forget," she replied, brushing off a piece of folded cloth.
Oriana sat cross-legged beside her.
Inside the box were remnants of childhood—paintbrushes with dried colors, broken crayons, a plastic mirror shaped like a heart, photos that had faded to gold at the edges. And near the bottom, a stack of watercolor pages tied together with fraying blue ribbon.
Anya untied it carefully.
"These are from before I understood what I was feeling," she said. "When I only knew I was different—but didn't know how."
She passed one to Oriana.
It was a painting of a sky full of kites—wild shapes in the wind, none of them touching, all of them colorful and alone. The ground beneath them was blank.
"I used to draw skies with no people," Anya said quietly. "Because I didn't know how to draw someone like me."
Oriana's throat tightened.
"They're beautiful," she whispered.
"They're lonely."
Oriana looked up at her.
"And now?"
Anya pulled out another painting—this one newer, less weathered. It was the same sky. The same scattered kites.
But this time, someone stood beneath them.
A girl with hair like dusk and eyes like rain, holding the string of the one kite that didn't look lost.
"She's you," Anya said.
Oriana didn't speak.
She only reached for Anya's hand and held it tight.
They spent the afternoon going through the old paintings, laying them across the attic floor like puzzle pieces of a forgotten dream. Oriana asked questions—about colors, about strokes, about what Anya remembered feeling when she painted certain scenes. And Anya answered each one, not with facts, but with feelings.
"This one was painted the day my teacher told me I was 'too quiet.' I remember because I came home and made everything blue."
"This one's from the week my mom forgot my birthday. I painted this tree and gave it twenty candles."
"This one… I didn't even paint for anyone. I just wanted to see if pink could feel like screaming."
Oriana listened like someone learning a new language.
Every brushstroke was a syllable.
Every shade a sentence.
When Anya paused, she looked over and found Oriana wiping at her cheek with the back of her sleeve.
"I didn't mean to make you cry," she said gently.
"I'm not sad," Oriana whispered. "I'm just… realizing how much I've missed. How much I still don't know about you."
Anya smiled, soft and slow.
"That's the beautiful part. We have time."
As golden hour settled over the town, they opened the small attic window to let in the breeze.
Oriana rested her chin on the windowsill.
"I used to fly kites with my father," she said. "Back when he still came home."
Anya didn't speak, sensing something delicate.
"I remember this one day," Oriana continued. "I had this red kite. It had a dragon on it, but one of the wings kept folding in. It never flew right. And my dad said, 'Maybe not everything is meant to fly.'"
She exhaled.
"And I thought he meant me."
Anya came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist.
"Maybe he was wrong."
Oriana leaned back into her.
"Maybe."
They spent the evening recreating one of Anya's old drawings together.
Anya handed Oriana a brush, guiding her fingers to the palette.
"You don't have to be good," she said.
"I'm terrible," Oriana replied.
"Perfect. Paint like no one will ever see it."
They sat shoulder to shoulder, both cross-legged, painting on a fresh sheet of watercolor paper. Oriana painted skies in peach and orange, filling the horizon with long brushstrokes that dipped and drifted.
Anya added figures—tiny people, dancing in the grass.
When they were done, it looked nothing like Anya's usual style.
It wasn't precise. It wasn't symmetrical.
But it was alive.
Oriana stared at it, smiling. "It's… chaotic."
Anya kissed her temple. "It's us."
That night, long after the paints had dried and the candles had burned down to little wax hills, they sat curled in a corner of the attic, the painting propped against the wall in front of them.
Oriana rested her head on Anya's shoulder.
"Promise me something," she whispered.
Anya nodded. "Anything."
"Promise me we'll keep making things together. Even when it's hard. Even when the colors get muddy."
Anya kissed the top of her head.
"I promise," she said.
"And if I forget how?"
"I'll remind you. Every time."
Oriana turned to face her.
Then kissed her, slow and warm.
And the world—at least the attic, at least this moment—became its own painting.
One made of old memories, new promises, and a sky full of kites that finally knew where to land.