Part 9 of The Space Between Us: The Rain That Didn’t Fall | Desire Lines
DL - It had been a quiet morning.
Livia stood by the kitchen sink, staring out the window. The sky was the kind of gray that usually promised rain. But the rain didn’t come.
And somehow, that unsettled her more than a storm would have.
Noah was in the other room, folding laundry, humming softly to himself.
Things had been good, almost too good.
And sometimes, Livia didn’t know how to hold happiness without waiting for it to vanish.
Later that afternoon, a conversation they weren’t planning happened.
“I got offered a two-month artist’s residency,” Noah said, setting down his mug.
Her heart skipped.
“Where?”
“Lisbon.”
One word. A thousand miles.
Livia looked down.
“You’re going?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no.”
“And if I ask you to stay?” she asked, quietly, almost shamefully.
He didn’t answer.
Not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew what she was really asking:
Do you choose your future, or do you choose me?
That night, they went for a walk.
The clouds hung low, heavy with promises, but never delivered.
Livia finally said, “I don’t want you to stay because of me.”
Noah stopped. Looked at her.
“But I don’t want to leave without you in the equation.”
She blinked. “What does that mean?”
“It means if I go, I want you to come for part of it. And if I stay, I want it to be because we’re building something real. Not because I’m afraid of what I’d miss.”
There it was.
A choice neither of them had prepared for.
A future neither of them could shape alone.
The next morning, it still hadn’t rained.
But the air smelled like renewal. Like the pause before something good.
Livia sat on the edge of the bed, watching Noah sleep.
And in that silence, she realized:
Sometimes love doesn’t test you with tragedy.
Sometimes it tests you with possibility.
To be continued...
Next Chapter (Finale): “Desire Lines”