Chapter 42: When Her Fingers Touched the Rain
The rain came softly that morning.
Not the angry, thunder-laced kind that made windows rattle and trees bend—but the gentle kind. The one that felt like it didn't mean to fall, like it only wanted to be near the earth. The kind of rain that made you pause mid-sentence and look up. That's the kind of morning I found myself in. And she was there, of course.
Oriana stood beneath the tamarind tree just outside the classroom block, one hand extended into the drizzle. Her fingers stretched like she was catching something invisible, delicate—maybe pieces of a song only she could hear.
I stood by the hallway window, watching her. The gray light danced in her hair, darkening the strands and making her skin look almost like porcelain kissed by morning dew. Everything about her had always felt just a little beyond reach. And yet, when she smiled at the rain, I felt like I was holding something sacred just by watching.
"You're staring again," Nana's voice came beside me, low and amused.
I smiled. "She makes it hard not to."
"She makes it easy to believe in soft things," Nana said, leaning against the frame beside me. "Like kindness. Or second chances. Or that maybe... love isn't just for poems."
I didn't answer. I was still watching Oriana. The way she tilted her face up. The way she closed her eyes and let the rain kiss her eyelids. There was something about her that always made the world slow down, like time itself was in awe.
Later, as the sky cleared into a silvery blue and the school buzzed back into rhythm, I found her by the covered walkway near the music room. She was sitting on the bench, swinging her legs like a child pretending not to wait for anything. But her eyes lit up when she saw me.
"I thought you disappeared," she said, patting the space beside her.
I sat down slowly, heart already stumbling. "I almost did."
She tilted her head. "Why?"
"Because if I stayed any longer by that window," I said, "I might've told the whole hallway what I feel for you."
Her smile softened. "And what do you feel for me?"
I looked down at our knees, close but not touching.
"That your name sounds better in my heart than it does in my mouth."
She blinked.
Then she whispered, "Say it anyway."
"Oriana."
The word tasted like warmth and wind and the first page of something I never wanted to end. She didn't laugh. She just looked at me like I'd handed her something precious.
"You always say things like that," she said.
"Like what?"
"Like you've been waiting lifetimes to say them."
"Maybe I have."
She turned toward me more fully, one knee brushing mine. Her fingers curled on her lap, not quite reaching out.
"I've been thinking about that kiss," she said softly. "The one by the pond."
My breath caught. "Me too."
"It scared me."
My chest tightened. "I'm sorry."
"No," she said quickly, shaking her head. "Not because it was wrong. But because it wasn't. Because it felt like I was finally opening a door I didn't know I had kept locked for so long."
I reached for her hand, gently. She let me.
Our fingers fit together again like they had always known the way.
"I've been afraid too," I said. "Afraid of waking up one day and realizing you were just a beautiful daydream."
"I'm not," she whispered. "I'm right here."
That afternoon, we skipped class.
Neither of us said it out loud. We just walked, hand in hand, through the wet paths behind the school buildings, where the moss grew thick between the stones and butterflies floated like forgotten prayers.
We didn't talk much. We didn't need to.
Sometimes she would stop to pick a frangipani from the ground, tucking it behind my ear with a smile. Sometimes I would point out a cloud shaped like a sleeping cat, and she'd laugh, warm and bright.
When we reached the little wooden bridge that crossed the narrow creek, she stopped. "Close your eyes."
I obeyed without question.
I felt her step in close, the space between us melting.
And then—her lips brushed mine again.
Not rushed.
Not tentative.
Just real. And soft. And filled with the unspoken.
When she pulled back, I opened my eyes slowly.
She was smiling, that same quiet smile she wore when the world was still.
"You taste like rain," I said.
"You taste like hope," she replied.
As the sky turned gold and the scent of wet leaves lingered in the air, we sat beneath the large rain tree on the far side of campus. She rested her head against my shoulder, her fingers still woven with mine.
"Can I tell you something?" she asked.
"Anything."
"I used to believe love was a flame," she said. "Hot, fast, and beautiful—but dangerous. Something that burned out too quickly."
"And now?"
She looked at me. "Now I think love is a river. Slow, patient, always finding its way even through the hardest stones."
I closed my eyes.
"Then let's be a river," I whispered. "Even if the world forgets our names."
She smiled and pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
And in that moment, I knew:
This wasn't just a chapter.
This was the beginning of the story I'd been waiting my whole life to tell.