The Sound of Someone Staying
The cold became sharper as the afternoon faded into evening, but neither Clara nor Elias seemed eager to return to Blackwater House just yet. Edinburgh had transformed after the storm. Snow softened every corner of the city, covering rooftops and stone pathways in white while golden lights slowly began appearing behind windows as darkness settled over the streets.
Clara walked beside Elias through the crowded Royal Mile, her hands buried deep inside her coat pockets. Tourists had started returning now that the weather had calmed, though the city still felt quieter than usual. Street musicians played beneath archways while the smell of roasted chestnuts and coffee drifted through the freezing air.
For a while, they walked without speaking much. Strangely, Clara had begun to enjoy the silence between them. Back home, silence with Daniel had always felt uncomfortable near the end, like both of them were waiting for the other person to admit something neither wanted to say out loud. But with Elias, quiet moments didn’t feel heavy. They simply existed.
At one point, they stopped near a small bookstore tucked between two old buildings. Warm yellow light spilled through fogged windows onto the snow outside.
Clara immediately slowed down.
Elias noticed. “You want to go inside.”
“That obvious?”
“You looked at the bookstore the way people look at religion.”
Clara laughed softly. “I really love books.”
“That explains why you overanalyze everything.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “That sounded personal.”
“It was meant to.”
The bookstore bell chimed softly as they stepped inside. Warmth wrapped around them immediately along with the comforting scent of old paper and coffee. The shop itself was small but crowded with towering shelves, worn wooden floors, and stacks of books piled carelessly in every corner.
Clara looked around with visible excitement.
“Oh, this place is dangerous.”
Elias removed his gloves slowly. “Dangerous?”
“I could disappear in here for hours.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It becomes a bad thing when you’re carrying luggage through Europe.”
A quiet smile touched his face again.
Clara wandered deeper into the store while Elias followed more slowly behind her. She ran her fingers lightly along the spines of novels stacked on old wooden shelves, occasionally pulling one free to read the back cover before placing it back again.
“You really do love this,” Elias observed.
Clara looked over her shoulder. “Books were kind of my first escape.”
“From what?”
She hesitated briefly before answering. “My parents mostly.”
Elias leaned lightly against one of the shelves, listening.
“They fought constantly when I was growing up,” she admitted. “Nothing dramatic. Just years of cold silence and passive-aggressive conversations across dinner tables.” She shrugged lightly. “Books felt easier than being home sometimes.”
Elias understood that feeling immediately. She could see it in his expression.
“My mother used to disappear into music the same way,” he said quietly.
Clara looked toward him curiously. “Disappear?”
“She played piano.” His voice softened slightly at the memory. “Whenever things became difficult, she’d lock herself in the sitting room and play for hours.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left when I was sixteen.”
The answer caught Clara off guard.
“She just left?”
Elias nodded once, calm but distant. “Moved to France with someone she met at a concert.”
“That’s… awful.”
For the first time, Elias looked genuinely uncomfortable discussing himself. “People leave,” he said simply.
The sentence sounded practiced. Like something he had repeated enough times to stop reacting to it emotionally.
But Clara noticed the small shift in his expression afterward. The tension in his shoulders. The way his eyes moved away from hers immediately after speaking.
People leave.
Maybe that belief explained more about him than anything else.
A comfortable silence settled between them again while snow drifted softly outside the bookstore windows. Clara picked up another novel absentmindedly before glancing toward him.
“So let me get this straight,” she said carefully. “Your father died, your mother disappeared to France, and then you lost the woman you were going to marry?”
Elias looked mildly surprised by how directly she summarized it.
“When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic.”
“It is dramatic.”
“That feels excessive.”
Clara stared at him in disbelief. “You are the most emotionally repressed man I’ve ever met.”
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
Not a small smile this time.
An actual laugh.
Low and brief, but real enough to make Clara freeze for half a second.
There it was again.
That version of him hidden beneath all the grief and silence.
And somehow it made her chest tighten unexpectedly.
Elias seemed to realize he’d laughed because his expression immediately became more guarded again.
Clara smiled anyway. “See? You are human.”
“Debatable.”
“You know,” she continued while placing the book back onto the shelf, “most people would need at least three therapists after surviving your life.”
“Therapy requires talking.”
“That’s literally the point.”
“I prefer photography.”
Clara shook her head. “That is the most tragic answer possible.”
He shrugged slightly, though amusement still lingered faintly in his eyes.
The bookstore owner eventually announced they would be closing soon. By the time Clara and Elias stepped back outside, evening had fully settled over the city. Streetlights glowed warmly against the snow while soft music drifted from nearby pubs.
The cold air hit Clara immediately.
“Okay,” she admitted, “I can no longer feel my hands.”
“That’s usually a bad sign.”
“I’m American. We’re weak against weather.”
“You survived the storm.”
“Barely. Spiritually, I’m still recovering.”
They started walking back toward Blackwater House together through the softly lit streets. Snow crunched beneath their boots while cold wind drifted through the city around them.
Clara glanced sideways at Elias after a few minutes.
“You know something weird?”
“That sentence rarely ends well.”
“I’m serious.”
“That’s more concerning.”
She rolled her eyes before continuing. “Three days ago, I thought my life was completely stable.”
Elias stayed quiet, listening.
“I knew where I lived. Who I loved. What my future looked like.” Clara looked ahead toward the snowy street. “Now suddenly none of it exists anymore.”
For a moment, only the sound of their footsteps filled the silence between them.
Then Elias spoke quietly.
“Sometimes losing the life you planned makes room for the life you actually need.”
Clara looked toward him carefully.
“That sounded suspiciously wise.”
“I read it somewhere.”
“You absolutely did not.”
A faint smile touched his mouth again.
When they finally reached Blackwater House, warm light glowed through the windows while smoke curled softly from the chimney into the freezing night sky.
For some reason, seeing the guesthouse again filled Clara with relief.
Not because of the building itself.
Because it had started feeling strangely like home.
Margaret looked up immediately from her chair near the fireplace the moment they walked inside.
“Well,” she announced dramatically, “you two took long enough. I was moments away from assuming you’d fallen in love and moved to Switzerland.”
Clara nearly laughed herself breathless while Elias closed his eyes briefly like a man accepting defeat.
“You’re exhausting,” he muttered.
“And yet,” Margaret replied smugly, “you came back smiling.”
Clara looked toward Elias instinctively.
And for the first time since meeting him, she realized Margaret was right.