The morning coffee had turned into an impromptu afternoon walk. Julian hadn't pressured Elara to speak, nor had he filled every second with meaningless chatter. He simply offered to show her a quiet walking trail behind the village, and she had surprised herself by accepting.
They walked side by side down a path blanketed in fallen pine needles, the air smelling of damp earth and cedar. The silence between them wasn't the heavy, suffocating kind Elara was used to at the cottage. It was comfortable, like a shared secret.
"My grandfather used to drag me out here when I was a teenager," Julian said, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. "I was a city kid, obsessed with the rush. I hated the quiet. I thought if it wasn't loud, it wasn't important."
Elara glanced at him, tilting her head. She pulled her phone from her cardigan pocket, quickly typing a question and holding the screen up for him: *What changed?*
Julian chuckled, a soft, rich sound that seemed to blend perfectly with the rustling leaves. "I burned out," he admitted, looking up at the canopy of trees. "I was trying to make it as a session guitarist in the city. Playing for commercials, backup tracks, anything that paid. But I lost the music. I was just making noise. So, I came back here. Started baking. Learned to appreciate the spaces between the notes."
He looked down at her, his hazel eyes locking onto hers. "Sometimes, the quiet is exactly what you need to figure out what you actually want to say."
Elara looked down at her boots, kicking a stray pinecone. She thought about the song sitting on her piano. She had found the music again in the quiet of Glenwood Cottage. But she still didn't have her voice. She touched her throat instinctively, a familiar knot of frustration tightening in her chest.
Julian noticed the gesture. He didn't offer a pitying smile. Instead, he stopped walking and turned to face her. "You don't have to force it, Elara," he said gently. "But when you're ready to try, you won't be doing it alone."