The first thing I learned about Riverside Lane was that quiet doesn’t mean empty. It means everything is happening under the surface, like roots working in secret. When I moved in, I wanted the kind of quiet that felt like a locked door. No arguments bleeding through drywall. No slammed cabinets. No sentence that started with “Marcus, you never…” and ended with silence so thick you could chew it.

I was thirty-six and newly divorced, which is a polite way of saying I’d spent three years in a slow-motion demolition with the woman I once swore I’d build a life with. Sarah and I didn’t explode. We eroded. We wore each other down with tone and timing, with assumptions dressed up as facts. Toward the end, even our apologies sounded like accusations. When the papers were signed, I packed my clothes, my tools, a few framed photos I couldn’t look at, and I drove until the city noise thinned out into something softer.

My little rental sat mid-block, modest and clean, with a porch that caught the morning sun. Next door was the house everyone noticed: blue shutters, a garden that looked like it had been combed, and a porch swing that creaked in a gentle rhythm like it still remembered laughter. That was Elena’s place.

She was fifty, and the neighborhood described her the way people describe a painting they don’t want to disturb. Widow. Quiet. Sweet. Keeps to herself. I’d see her early, watering the flowers as if each one had a name. Sometimes she read on her porch, turning pages slowly, pausing like the words were something you tasted.

We were polite neighbors, nothing more. A wave over the fence. A nod at the mailbox. “Morning.” “Morning.” I told myself that was enough. I didn’t move to Riverside Lane to meet anyone. I moved there to forget what it felt like to need.

Then came a Tuesday morning that didn’t know it was going to matter.

It was early, around 6:30, and the sky looked washed clean. I stepped onto my porch with a watering can, mostly for the performance of being a person with a routine. Across the yard, Elena’s kitchen curtain was open. She stood at the counter making coffee, dark hair loose over her shoulders, wearing a pale blue robe. She hummed a melody I didn’t recognize, something soft that made the whole scene feel like a secret you weren’t supposed to witness.

I wasn’t trying to look. I didn’t even want to want to look. But peace is magnetic when you’re starving for it, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away fast enough to pretend I hadn’t seen it.

She turned her head and caught me.

My stomach dropped. Heat climbed my neck. For a split second, I was twelve again, caught doing something dumb and not knowing how to undo it. I expected her face to tighten, her hand to yank the curtain closed, the moment to turn into something embarrassing that would haunt me every time I stepped outside.

Instead, Elena smiled.

Not a sharp smile. Not a flirtation. A calm, almost amused softness, like she’d just found a bird perched on her railing and decided not to scare it away. She walked closer to the window, tilted her head, and said loud enough for me to hear:

“Want to see? Just ask.”

Then she pulled the curtain closed with the gentlest motion in the world, as if she were ending a conversation, not accusing me of starting one.

I stood on my porch frozen, watering can hanging at my side like my arm had forgotten its job. Her five words replayed in my head all day, bumping into everything else I tried to think about. They weren’t mean. They weren’t teasing. They were something worse in the best way: permission. The kind you don’t realize you’ve been begging for until it’s offered.

The next few days, I caught myself waking early just to see if her porch light would click on. I told myself it was coincidence. I told myself it was habit. I told myself a lot of things that weren’t true, because the truth was simpler and harder: I liked the way she made a quiet street feel less like a hiding place.

Elena didn’t act different. If anything, she acted like she’d forgotten the whole thing. She waved. She asked how my day was going. She smiled with that same steady calm, and the normalness of it made me feel even more off-balance, like I was the only one who’d been moved.

On Saturday, my fence gate gave me the perfect excuse to look busy. The latch was stuck, and I attacked it with a screwdriver like it had personally insulted me. I was doing it wrong and I knew it, but admitting you don’t know something is a tender spot after divorce. You spend years being told what you do wrong, and eventually you’d rather break a latch than ask for help.

“Elena’s voice floated over the fence. “You’re going to snap that if you keep prying at it.”

I looked up and there she was in her yard, cup of tea in hand, watching me with an expression that was equal parts concern and entertainment. I laughed, more embarrassed than I wanted to be.

“Then maybe you should come show me how it’s done, neighbor.”

She set her tea down and walked over like the decision had already been made. Jeans, a simple white shirt, hair pulled into a ponytail. Nothing dramatic about her, and yet every step felt like something shifting into place. She took the screwdriver from my hand, placed it the right way, and loosened the latch with a small twist that made my struggle look like a tantrum.

“There,” she said, handing it back. “Now you know.”

Her fingers brushed mine for a second, just the smallest contact, but it hit like a spark finding dry paper. I swallowed, trying to keep my face neutral, and failed.

“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you one.”

“Just don’t break anything else,” she replied, smiling as she went back to her side of the fence.

After that, the distance between our houses didn’t change, but the space between us did.

A few days later, Elena knocked on my door holding a plate covered with foil.

“I made too many muffins,” she said. “Thought you might want some.”

I should have thanked her and sent her away, because that was the kind of peace I’d come for: the peace that doesn’t risk anything. Instead, I stepped aside and said, “Come in.”

We sat at my kitchen table with the muffins between us like an offering. The conversation didn’t lurch. It didn’t feel like an interview. It flowed. She talked about her garden, about her tomatoes never turning out right no matter how much she babied them. I told her about my job as a construction manager, about a building project that had been dragging for months, about the way delays stack up until you can’t tell which problem started the whole mess.

Elena listened like it was worth hearing. Not with polite nodding, but with real attention, the kind that makes you realize how rarely people do it. Before she left, she nodded toward her porch.

“You should come over for tea sometime. My porch gets the best light in the evenings.”

“Yes,” I said, and surprised myself with how immediate the answer was. Like my mouth had been waiting for the question.

So I started going over. A few evenings a week became most evenings. Tea on her porch. Lemonade when the heat rose. Conversations that stretched long past the point where they could be called neighborly. She told me about Thomas, her late husband, who’d died four years ago after a sickness that arrived like an uninvited guest and never left. She said she still talked to his picture sometimes, asking what he’d think about small things, like whether she should repaint the trim or plant new roses.

It didn’t sound like she was trapped in grief. It sounded like she was telling the truth.

I told her about Sarah, about meeting in college, about how we used to laugh until we cried, about how that laughter slowly got replaced with sarcasm, then silence. I admitted I stayed longer than I should have because I was scared of being alone, and because leaving felt like admitting failure.

Elena reached across the small table and placed her hand over mine like she’d done it a thousand times.

“You didn’t fail, Marcus,” she said softly. “You just stayed with the wrong person too long. That’s not the same thing.”

I didn’t realize how much I needed those words until they landed in me and made something unclench. For the first time in two years, I felt less like damaged goods and more like a person who had survived something hard.

One evening I brought coffee instead of tea, and Elena raised an eyebrow with mock suspicion.

“Trying to change our tradition?”

I shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to stay a little longer.”

She studied me for a few seconds, eyes steady, as if she were reading the part of me that always tried to pretend it didn’t need anything. Then she said, “You don’t need an excuse, Marcus. You can stay as long as you want.”

I walked back home that night with her words humming in my chest. It wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t just loneliness. It was the startling relief of being seen without being judged. Like she could look straight at the messy, tired parts of me and still decide I was worth sitting beside.

A week later, a storm rolled in fast, turning the sky the color of old metal. Rain hammered the windows. Wind rattled the trees. I was inside reading when I looked out and saw Elena on her porch wrapped in a thick blanket, watching the rainfall like it was a movie she’d already memorized.

I stood in my doorway for a moment, arguing with myself. Don’t make it weird. Don’t hover. Don’t become the guy who needs. Then something quieter but stronger rose up: Go anyway.

I ran across the wet grass and up her steps. She looked surprised.

“You’re going to get soaked,” she said.

“Then share your blanket,” I replied.

She laughed and lifted one side. I sat down, and she draped the blanket over both of us. The rain made the world feel smaller, like it had erased everything beyond our porch. We didn’t talk for a while. We listened. We breathed. I could smell wet dirt and crushed leaves and the faint sweetness of her soap.

“People don’t really listen to rain anymore,” she said eventually. “They just try to avoid it.”

“Maybe they just need someone to listen with,” I said, and the words surprised me by how true they felt.

She turned her head and met my eyes. No game. No performance. Just honesty.

When I stood to leave, she reached out and gently grabbed my wrist. Her fingers were warm, firm enough to stop me, gentle enough not to trap me.

“Marcus,” she said, and her voice softened into something almost vulnerable. “Want to see? Just ask.”

I smiled, not because I fully understood what she meant, but because for the first time in years I wanted to try. I wanted to let someone in again, even if it scared me. Especially because it scared me.

After that, mornings became our thing without either of us naming it. Her porch light would click on around six. I’d step out with my coffee like I belonged to the day again. She’d be there with tea, hair pulled back, sitting in the same wooden chair as if she’d been waiting for me without admitting it.

We talked about small things. Her stubborn tomatoes. A stray orange cat that started sleeping under her porch. The Johnsons down the street arguing like it was their hobby. It was normal and safe, and underneath it was something neither of us said out loud: the steady building of trust.

I started doing small things for her. Fixed her screen door when it wouldn’t close right. Carried her groceries in without being asked. She never treated it like a debt. She treated it like a language we were learning together. In return, she left muffins on my doorstep with little notes. Brought over flowers clipped from her garden. One note said, Don’t forget your umbrella today.

I hadn’t been cared for like that in so long I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. It didn’t feel like fireworks. It felt like a hand on your back guiding you through a doorway you didn’t realize you’d been standing outside of.

Then the neighborhood reminded us it had eyes.

On the day of the annual yard sale, everyone dragged their old things onto folding tables like offering sacrifices to the god of decluttering. Elena and I were setting up her driveway when Mr. Chun wandered over. He was the kind of man who smiled too wide and too often, like it covered something sharp.

He looked at me, then Elena, then back at me. His grin widened.

“Didn’t know you liked them younger, Elena,” he said, like I wasn’t standing right there. “You two better be careful. People are going to talk.”

Heat rushed into my face, and anger followed right behind it. I opened my mouth, ready to bite back. Elena’s smile stayed in place, but something changed in her eyes, a flicker like a light going behind a curtain.

“We’re just neighbors, Mr. Chun,” I said, forcing my voice to stay calm.

“Sure you are,” he chuckled. “Friendly neighbors.”

He walked away laughing to himself.

Elena kept arranging her table like nothing happened, but her hands moved faster, and her jaw tightened in a way that made her look suddenly younger and more tired all at once.

“He talks because he’s lonely,” she said quietly, not looking at me. “He thinks being loud means people care about him.”

She picked up a ceramic vase painted with blue flowers and pressed it into my hands.

“Take this,” she said. “It needs someone who will appreciate it.”

Later, on my porch, she went quiet in a way that felt heavier than silence should. I could tell Mr. Chun’s comment had landed somewhere tender.

“I thought I was ready for comments like that,” she admitted finally. “But I guess I’m not.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to anyone,” I said.

She nodded, but her eyes didn’t lift. She looked smaller somehow, like the neighborhood’s curiosity had taken up physical space around her.

“Come inside,” I said. “No audience in here.”

We sat at my kitchen table, the blue vase between us like a mediator. Elena traced the rim with her finger without looking up, and I waited. I’d learned with her that rushing the truth makes it hide.

“When Thomas died,” she began, voice low, “I found things. Receipts from restaurants I’d never been to. Messages he tried to delete but didn’t know how.” She exhaled like she’d been holding that breath for years. “Everyone at the funeral called me a saint for taking care of him when he was sick. But the whole time… I was grieving two different people. The man I thought I married, and the man I never really knew.”

My chest tightened. I wanted to reach for her hand, but I didn’t want to assume. Elena made the choice for me, placing her hand over mine.

“I don’t usually tell people that,” she said. “They like the simple story better. The widow who loved her husband until the end.”

“I’m not most people,” I said.

A small smile tugged at her mouth, grateful and sad at the same time. “I know.”

A knock came at the door, and Mrs. Patterson returned a dish I’d lent her. She glanced at Elena, then at me, and her face softened in a way that was almost maternal.

“You two doing okay?” she asked.

“We’re fine,” Elena replied, and there was steel under her gentleness, a quiet warning that her life wasn’t a community project.

When Mrs. Patterson left, the air felt different, cleaner, like truth had oxygenated it.

“Let’s make a rule,” Elena said. “The neighborhood can think whatever they want, but we tell each other the truth.”

“What’s our truth?” I asked.

She looked right at me. “Right now? Two people sitting at a table being honest. That’s enough.”

I squeezed her hand. “I like mornings because you’re in them.”

Color warmed her cheeks. “I’m not scared of being fifty, Marcus. I’m scared of people treating me like I need to explain myself.”

“You’re not an explanation,” I said. “You’re someone I want to know better.”

I made us sandwiches because she looked tired and I didn’t want her to leave yet. I cut them crooked, cheese hanging out the sides like it was trying to escape, and she laughed, really laughed, and ate every bite like it was the best thing she’d tasted in a long time.

When she stood to go, dark clouds were gathering again, the kind that promised trouble.

At the door, she paused with our hands still linked.

“You’re the first person I’ve trusted in a really long time,” she said. “Don’t make me feel like I owe you something for it.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “But I am making you breakfast tomorrow.”

She smiled, leaned forward, and kissed my cheek. Quick. Soft. Important. Then she walked back across the yard as the first raindrops began to fall, and I watched her like she was a fragile, brave thing I’d been handed without instructions.

That night, the storm didn’t play nice. Wind slammed the windows. Thunder shook the house. At around nine, my lights snapped off, leaving me in a dark so complete it felt personal. Across the yard, candles glowed in Elena’s windows, warm points of light in the chaos.

Then she knocked.

“Marcus,” she called, and her voice carried worry. “My power’s out and I can’t find the circuit breaker.”

I grabbed my flashlight and ran over, rain soaking through my shirt in seconds. Elena stood barefoot on her porch wrapped in a blanket, hair wet and curling, looking both strong and suddenly young.

“You’re going to get sick,” I said.

“So are you,” she answered, almost smiling.

Inside her house smelled like cinnamon candles and rain. She pointed toward a door. “The breaker’s in the basement. But I hate going down there. It’s creepy.”

“I’ll protect you from the ghosts,” I said, and for a moment she looked like she wanted to believe me.

We descended the stairs together. The basement air felt heavy, not just with damp, but with history. The flashlight beam jumped across old boxes and shadowed corners. Elena clutched her blanket tighter, and I realized the fear in her wasn’t childish. It was memory wearing a costume.

I found the panel, flipped the switch, and the lights snapped on. The fridge hummed back to life. Elena exhaled like she’d been holding her breath since the storm started.

“You just saved me,” she said.

“I don’t think you need saving,” I replied. “I think you’re stronger than you think.”

She gave a soft, humorless laugh. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“Then let me know you better,” I said before my fear could stop me.

Her eyes held mine, candlelight upstairs throwing a warm glow down the stairs. “Marcus, don’t.”

“Why not?”

She tightened her grip on the blanket. “Because I don’t want to confuse being lonely with actually caring about someone. And I don’t want you to make that mistake either.”

I nodded, because she was right to be careful, and because careful had once been my whole personality. But neither of us moved toward the stairs. The basement light buzzed overhead, and the storm roared outside like it was trying to drown out what was happening between us.

We went back upstairs and sat at her kitchen table with tea steaming between us. Lightning flashed; she flinched.

“I used to love storms,” she said quietly. “But Thomas…” She swallowed. “He died in a car accident on a rainy night. Ever since then, thunder feels like a warning.”

I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she whispered. “I’m trying to like them again. Maybe it’s time.”

She looked up, eyes shiny in the candlelight. “I haven’t felt like someone really saw me in years.”

I didn’t rush to answer with words. I let my gaze do the work. Elena lifted her hand and touched my face, fingers gentle like she was checking to see if I was real.

“Want to see? Just ask,” she murmured, and the phrase wasn’t playful now. It was an invitation into her life, her fear, her hope.

“I’m already looking,” I said.

We leaned in slowly. Foreheads touched first. Then her lips met mine, soft and careful, like we were both holding something breakable. It wasn’t wild. It wasn’t desperate. It was two people choosing not to run.

After, she rested her head on my shoulder, and we listened to the storm as it began to move away.

When I left, the rain had softened. The air felt rinsed clean. I walked home with my heart full in a way that made me suspicious, because joy after pain can feel like a trap.

The next morning proved it.

I stepped outside to check the mail and saw Elena by her mailbox, hair tied back, face beautiful and uncertain. I smiled at her, and she didn’t immediately smile back.

“Hey,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.

“Hey, Marcus.”

There was a pause long enough to bruise.

“About last night,” I began.

She cut me off fast, eyes flicking down the street. “We should probably just forget it happened.”

The words hit like cold water.

“Forget it?” I repeated. “Elena, that wasn’t a mistake.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But people talk, Marcus. And I can’t handle that right now. It’s not that I don’t feel something for you. I do.” Her voice shook. “That’s what scares me.”

Before I could answer, a shiny black car rolled up to the curb like it didn’t belong on our quiet street. A man stepped out in an expensive suit, moving with the confidence of someone used to being obeyed.

Elena’s face changed. The warmth drained out, replaced by something stiff and defensive.

“David,” she said, too polite. Too controlled. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

David smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I saw your lights on late last night when I drove by. Thought I’d check and make sure you were okay.”

Then he looked at me, his gaze taking in my work boots and casual clothes like they were evidence.

“And who’s this?”

“Just a neighbor,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Marcus.”

“Ah,” David murmured, as if my name tasted bland. He extended a hand without warmth. “The helpful neighbor type. How nice.”

Elena’s cheeks flushed. “David, please don’t.”

But he talked over her like she hadn’t spoken. “You always did have a soft spot for projects, Elena. People you think you can fix.”

My hands curled into fists.

“I think you need to leave,” I said.

David ignored me, turning back to Elena. “Do you really want the whole neighborhood whispering again? You know how they get.” His voice softened, but it wasn’t kindness. It was control. “We’ll talk later, when you’re thinking more clearly.”

He got back into his car and drove away like he’d won something.

Elena stood there hugging herself like she was cold, even though the sun was out.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said quietly. “He’s someone I tried to be with after Thomas. It ended badly.”

“Doesn’t look like it ended at all,” I snapped before I could stop myself.

Pain flashed across her face. “That’s not fair, Marcus.”

I inhaled, forcing myself to unclench. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Seeing him here right after last night… it made me feel like I don’t understand what’s happening between us.”

Elena stepped closer, eyes wet but refusing to spill. “I need time,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing with him, with you, with any of this. I just need space to think.”

It hurt, but I nodded. “Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

The days that followed were quiet in the worst way. We saw each other through windows and looked away too quickly, like eye contact would reopen a wound. At night, I sat on my porch and listened to the neighborhood sounds, each one reminding me how alone I’d wanted to be and how lonely that now felt.

On Friday evening, my friend Lucas stopped by with a six-pack and a worried look.

“You look terrible,” he said, dropping into the chair beside me. “Let me guess. Girl problems.”

I told him everything. The window. The porch tea. The storm. David. The way Elena had stepped back like she’d been burned.

Lucas listened, then stared at me like he wanted to shake sense into my skull. “Marcus, you can’t fix people who are still bleeding from someone else. You’ll just end up broken too. Let this one go before it tears you apart.”

Part of me knew he might be right. Part of me wanted to be the man who walked away before the pain arrived. But then I looked across the yard and saw Elena wrestling with her garden hose, tangled into knots, frustration written all over her face.

Something in me stood up.

“I’m going to be a helpful neighbor,” I said, and Lucas groaned like he’d predicted my stupidity.

Elena looked up when I approached. For a second I thought she’d tell me to leave. Instead she sighed, defeated.

“I can’t get this stupid thing untangled.”

“Let me help,” I said.

We worked on it together without talking, hands brushing as we pulled the knots loose. The silence between us wasn’t empty. It was heavy with all the things we were afraid to say wrong. Finally the hose gave, water flowing freely again.

Elena shut the faucet off and stood there staring at the wet grass as if it held answers.

“I ended things with David,” she said suddenly. “For good this time.”

Relief and fear tangled in my chest. “Are you okay?”

She smiled, tired but real. “Not really. But I will be.”

She took a breath, shoulders lifting and lowering like she was setting something down.

“I know what it’s like to build walls,” she continued. “After Thomas, after what I found out, after… everything. Walls keep you safe. But they also keep out the light.”

I reached for her hand. She let me take it.

“Then maybe it’s time to open the windows,” I said.

She squeezed my fingers. “You’re too patient with me.”

“Maybe I finally found something worth being patient for,” I answered, and the words felt like truth, not a line.

That night, I sat on my porch again. The light between our houses was on. I didn’t know if she’d turned it on for me or if it was habit, but when I looked over, Elena was sitting on her porch too, tea in hand. When she saw me watching, she didn’t look away.

“The storm’s over,” I called softly.

She nodded. “For now.”

I crossed the yard and sat beside her. We didn’t speak for a while. The air smelled like damp earth and cut grass. It smelled like second chances.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” she said. “I tried to. I admitted it didn’t work.”

I laughed quietly. “I’m not giving up on myself either.”

She glanced at me, and something softened in her expression, like that mattered more than any romantic declaration.

Spring arrived slowly after that. Trees grew their leaves back. Flowers pushed up through the dirt. Elena and I fell into a routine that didn’t need a label. Morning drinks on one porch or the other. Small jokes. Shared silence that felt like rest, not punishment. The neighborhood still watched, of course. But watching lost its power when we stopped treating ourselves like something shameful.

At the Hendersons’ anniversary party, Elena wore a simple yellow dress that looked like sunlight decided to become fabric. We walked in together, and Mr. Chun’s eyes followed us like he couldn’t decide whether to be entertained or offended. Elena lifted her chin and kept walking. I realized then that her calm wasn’t fragile. It was practiced courage.

Music played. People danced. I lingered at the edge, uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong?” Elena asked.

“I don’t really know how to dance,” I admitted.

She held out her hand. “You told me once you didn’t know how to love someone again either. But you figured it out. One step at a time, remember?”

I took her hand, and we moved onto the grass. We didn’t do anything impressive. We just swayed, awkward and honest. She rested her head against my chest, and the world blurred at the edges into something softer.

“People are staring,” I murmured.

“I know,” she whispered. “Let them stare. I’m done hiding from being happy.”

When the song ended, a few people clapped. Some smiled. Others just watched. Elena looked up at me with the same calm expression that had first unraveled me.

Later that week, we sat on her porch watching the sunset paint the sky in bruised pinks and oranges. Tiny drops of rain began to fall, not a storm, just a gentle spring sprinkle.

Elena caught me looking at her instead of the sky.

“What?” she asked, amused.

“You still feel unreal sometimes,” I admitted. “Like if I blink wrong, I’ll wake up back in my old life.”

She leaned closer, hand resting over my heartbeat. “Love isn’t supposed to feel like lightning,” she said. “Not if you want it to last.”

“What’s it supposed to feel like?” I asked.

She listened to the rain tap the porch roof. “This,” she said. “Steady. Quiet. Sometimes annoying. But it’s what makes everything grow.”

I laughed softly. “So… we learned how to dance in it.”

“We did,” she agreed, and her eyes shone. “And we can keep learning.”

I turned toward her fully, the rain cooling my skin, the porch light casting her in warmth.

“Elena,” I said. “That morning. When you caught me staring.”

She raised an eyebrow, smile curling.

“Want to see?” she teased gently.

I shook my head, smiling back. “I just want you to know… you didn’t save me. You reminded me I could save myself. And you didn’t owe me anything for trusting me.”

Her expression softened, and she touched my cheek with the same careful tenderness she’d shown in the storm.

“Want to see?” she whispered, voice turning serious again. “Just ask.”

“I see you,” I said. “That’s the point. I see you.”

She leaned in and kissed me, no hesitation this time, no fear of windows or whispers. Just a kiss that felt like closing one chapter and opening another.

The rain kept falling, quiet and patient, and we stayed right where we were, letting it soak us like a blessing. I understood then that real love doesn’t always arrive loud. Sometimes it arrives like a porch light turning on at six in the morning. Sometimes it arrives as muffins with a note. Sometimes it arrives as five simple words that hand you back your courage.

And sometimes the bravest thing you can do isn’t making a grand gesture. Sometimes it’s staying. Listening. Choosing again tomorrow.

Together, we listened to the rain.

And we let it make everything grow.

THE END