Selene's/Atasha's POV ;
We drove aimlessly at first, talking about nothing and everything. He let me ramble about my nursing school struggles and the fashion pieces I was sketching on the side. He listened—really listened—with the kind of attention that made me feel seen in a way I hadn't in years.
After lunch at a quiet garden café, we found ourselves walking through a nearby art gallery tucked into the backstreets. It was small, intimate—paintings, sketches, and soft instrumental music filling the air like a hush. We stood side by side, shoulders brushing, as we admired a large canvas filled with soft watercolors of two figures holding hands in a field.
"I wonder what their story is," I whispered.
"They found their way back," Antonio said quietly. "Took them a while... but they're holding on now."
I turned toward him, and he was already looking at me—eyes full of the same warmth I used to dream about. Slowly, his fingers reached for mine, hesitating just a little. I let him take my hand.
My heart was pounding—not in fear or sadness this time, but in something gentle and new.
As we walked to the next room, he didn't let go. His thumb brushed lightly over my knuckles now and then, like a silent apology. Like a promise.
Then, when we stepped out onto the rooftop terrace of the gallery—open sky, quiet wind, and the scent of blooming jasmine all around—I turned to him again.
And he kissed me.
Soft, slow, like a memory being rewritten with tenderness. One hand cupped my cheek, and the world melted away. For the first time, the past didn't ache. It settled.
I kissed him back.
The kiss lingered on my lips long after we pulled away. I felt the world quiet around us—as if even the wind paused to watch. My heart, once filled with a thousand questions, finally found a moment of stillness.
I looked into Antonio's eyes. They weren't rushing ahead. They weren't pleading. They were just... there. Present. Honest.
"I didn't expect that," I said softly, barely above a whisper.
He gave a half-smile. "Neither did I. But it felt right, didn't it?"
I nodded. "It didn't feel like a mistake... or like the past. It felt like us. Only new."
We stood in silence, not the awkward kind but the gentle one—like the hush between lyrics of a song you know by heart. I took a slow breath, grounding myself. "Antonio... I just need to ask. What are we doing? Because I can't go back to being someone's maybe."
He reached for my hand again, this time with more certainty. "You're not a maybe. Not anymore. I kissed you because I meant it. And I want to take this slow, not out of fear—but because I don't want to ruin it."
His words landed like soft rain after a drought. Healing. Real.
I squeezed his hand. "Then let's go slow. But steady. No more confusion."
"No more running?" he asked, a gentle smile playing on his lips.
I smiled back. "Only walking forward."
And for the rest of the day, that's exactly what we did. We walked. We talked. We laughed. And for the first time in a long time, we didn't look back.