Ink and Rainwater

Sophia stood in the rain, motionless as the world rushed past her. Water seeped through the fabric of her coat, chilling her skin, but she barely felt it. Her pulse was louder than the patter of raindrops against the pavement, louder than the distant horns of impatient drivers, louder than the city itself.

Her fingers clutched the strap of her bag, white-knuckled. Inside, the letter sat folded and pristine, though its words had already burned themselves into her mind. A single page, yet impossibly heavy, pressing down on her chest like a stone. She had read it once. That was enough.

She should have thrown it away. Torn it apart, let the wind scatter the pieces into the gutter. Instead, she had walked for hours, through streets thick with life, through the kind of cold that made people hurry home. But she had no destination. Only the weight of a past she wasn’t ready to face.

A flickering streetlamp hummed above her, casting a sickly yellow glow that shimmered in the puddles at her feet. Headlights streaked by, car tires sloshing water onto the sidewalk, but she didn’t flinch. She just stood there, rooted in place, unable to move forward, unwilling to turn back.

She had spent months trying to outrun his memory.

And with a handful of ink on paper, he had caught up to her.

The letter had come that morning, buried between a stack of bills and useless advertisements. No return address. Just her name, written in the slanted script she had once traced with her fingertips.

Ethan.

Her stomach had twisted at the sight of it, an old wound splitting open. She had carried it to the kitchen table, her hands unsteady as she broke the seal. The paper was crisp, uncreased. He must have written it recently.

"I never meant to hurt you."

The first words on the page had hit her like a punch to the ribs. How easy it was for him to say that. How cruel.

She had forced herself to read on, each line a fresh ache, a familiar sting. Apologies. Explanations. Half-hearted justifications wrapped in regret. She had traced the ink with her eyes, knowing it wouldn’t change anything.

And then, at the very end, a question:

"Can we talk?"

Sophia had stared at those three words for what felt like forever. They shouldn’t have mattered. They shouldn’t have made her feel anything at all.

But they did.

A sharp gust of wind sent rain lashing against her skin. Sophia blinked, shivering, pulled back into the present. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, breaking through the haze of her thoughts.

She hesitated, then pulled it out, wiping damp fingers against her coat before swiping across the screen. A message.

Not from him.

From a friend. Asking if she was okay.

She let out a breath, a small, shaky thing.

Outside, the street stretched ahead of her, endless and uncertain. She could stand here forever, waiting for an answer that wouldn’t come. Or she could move.

She wiped the rain from her face, set her jaw, and took a step forward.

The café was nearly empty when she stepped inside, the bell above the door chiming softly. Warm air wrapped around her like an embrace, thick with the scent of coffee and vanilla, but it didn’t quite reach her bones. She still felt cold, still felt hollow.

The barista barely looked up as she approached the counter. She ordered something hot, though she knew she wouldn’t drink it, and moved to a table by the window. Outside, the world blurred—headlights smeared across the glass, neon signs bleeding into puddles. The rain made everything softer, quieter.

She pulled the letter from her bag, smoothing it out with careful hands. The ink looked darker here under the café’s soft lighting, more permanent. As if reading it again might solidify something inside her.

Her fingers hovered over the edge of the paper.

And suddenly, she was somewhere else.

Two Years Ago

The first time she met Ethan, it had been raining then, too. But that rain had been different—warmer, gentler, charged with summer’s restless energy. The sky had split open just as she stepped off the curb, cursing herself for forgetting an umbrella, when suddenly—

"Here."

A navy-blue umbrella had appeared above her, shielding her from the downpour. She turned, startled, to find a man standing beside her, grinning as if the storm were an inside joke only he understood.

"Looks like you need this more than I do," he said.

She should have said no. Should have smiled politely and kept walking. Instead, something about him—his dark, unruly hair, the way his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners—made her hesitate.

"You’ll get wet," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "I like the rain."

She didn’t know then that Ethan always liked things that made life feel cinematic. That he thrived on moments like this—unplanned, impulsive, a little reckless. She didn’t know that months later, she would fall in love with that part of him, and that eventually, it would break her heart.

But on that day, she had simply smiled, ducked under the umbrella, and let him walk beside her.

Sophia blinked, the memory dissolving like mist.

Ethan had been like that—impossible to ignore, impossible to hold onto. He was the kind of person who burned brightly, who threw himself into love with the same reckless enthusiasm he had for everything else. But love wasn’t supposed to be a thrill ride. It was supposed to be steady. Safe.

And Ethan had never been steady.

She had seen the restlessness in him even when they were happy. The way his fingers drummed against tabletops, the way his gaze drifted to the horizon like he was always searching for something more. He had loved her, she knew that much. But it hadn’t been enough to keep him from leaving.

She still remembered the night he walked away.

"I don’t know who I am yet, Soph," he had said, voice thick with guilt. "I don’t want to hurt you."

But he had.

And now, after all this time, he wanted to talk.

Her throat tightened. People didn’t change overnight. They didn’t wake up one morning with all the answers, suddenly ready to be who they should have been.

So why was part of her still waiting for him to prove her wrong?

Her untouched coffee had gone cold. The café door swung open, a rush of icy air slipping inside as a man stepped through, shaking out his umbrella. Not Ethan. But her pulse still jumped for half a second, stupid and traitorous.

Sophia exhaled slowly, pressing her palms against the table.

Her phone was still in her pocket. If she wanted, she could pull it out right now, type out a single word.

Yes.

Or she could delete his message. Pretend he had never reached out. Erase him the way he had once erased her.

Outside, the rain kept falling, endless and indifferent. The couple at the counter gathered their things, their laughter warm and weightless as they stepped back into the storm together.

Sophia’s phone screen dimmed, waiting.

She took a deep breath.

And made a choice.