Chapter 110

• The rain had started that morning, not in a rush but as something gradual, as if the sky had needed time to make up its mind. It wasn’t the kind of downpour that sent people running or forced umbrellas open like shields. It was a gentle, steady rainfall. A soft insistence that lingered in the air and darkened the sidewalks, painting the city in deeper shades of itself. By noon, everything was wet and quiet. Not silent, but hushed. As though the rain had given the day permission to slow down.
• Julian and I didn’t have plans. For the first time in weeks, there was no event, no fitting, no meeting waiting just beyond the next breath. We had taken the day without apology. Not as a reward, not to mark anything. Just because we could. Because the work was steady, the team was strong, and we had started to understand that rest did not mean stepping away. It meant stepping into something else for a while. Something just as real. Something that didn’t need to be measured.
• We walked through the city, winding streets that had changed over time but still carried the shape of memory. Julian had bought three books from the old shop near the corner—the one with the mismatched chairs and that particular smell of ink and paper that always reminded me of something too distant to name. I hadn’t bought anything. I didn’t need to. It had been enough to wander, to read the titles and trace the spines with my fingers. That was the kind of day it was. Not for needing. Just for noticing.