The morning after the rain, Paris gleamed like a photograph left too long in the sun — washed, fragile, beautiful in its exhaustion.

Arias woke to the faint hum of the city and the smell of oil paint.
Her hands were still stained from the night before.
On her desk lay the photograph Henry had given her — the one of Edelweiss Café, corners still damp, its colors bleeding softly into each other like tears that had finally learned to rest.

She touched the image gently, tracing the empty chair in the window.
He had stood there just hours ago.
Now the city was full of his absence again.

Arias took her coat and left without breakfast.
There was a place she needed to go — Atelier Bleu, the studio where Henry had once taught her how to "chase the light."

The studio stood at the edge of Montmartre, hidden behind a row of ivy-covered walls.
The sign had faded; dust clung to the windows.
It had been closed for months, maybe longer.

She found the spare key still under the third stone — just where Henry used to hide it.
The door creaked open, releasing a breath of paint, turpentine, and memories.

Inside, time had stopped.
The air shimmered with thin streaks of sunlight, cutting through floating dust like silver ribbons.
Paintbrushes lay where they'd fallen.
On the far table, jars of pigment sat half-open — cobalt blue, ochre, lavender gray.

And there, against the wall, stood an easel.
A canvas rested on it, covered by a cloth.
Arias hesitated, then pulled it away.

The breath left her lungs.

It was a painting — unfinished, yet achingly alive.
She recognized the scene instantly: Edelweiss Café, just before the rain.
Two cups of coffee. Two empty chairs.
And in the window's reflection — the faint outlines of two people, drawn in gentle strokes that looked almost like light itself.

Henry's hand.
There was no doubt.

A note was pinned to the edge of the canvas, written in his unmistakable scrawl:

"Every color I've ever used began with you."

Arias pressed a trembling hand to her lips.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then, almost unconsciously, she picked up one of Henry's brushes and dipped it into the paint left on his palette — the same lavender gray he always mixed himself.

She stood before the canvas, listening to the echo of his voice in memory:
"Don't paint what you see, Arias. Paint what stays."

And so she did.

Her strokes were slow at first, hesitant.
Then, as the hours passed, they grew surer, gentler — like the rhythm of a heartbeat returning.
She painted until the light outside faded, until her hands ached and her eyes blurred.

When she finally stepped back, the scene was complete.
The two figures in the window were no longer faceless.
They were smiling.

Arias sank to the floor, exhausted, her face streaked with tears and paint.
But for the first time in months — maybe years — she felt light again.
As if Henry was still there, guiding her hand, breathing through the silence.

Outside, dusk settled over Montmartre.
Through the open window, a breeze carried in the scent of rain — faint but unmistakable.
It brushed against her cheek like a familiar touch.

She looked up and whispered,

"You found me again, Henry."

And though no one answered, the light in the studio flickered — soft, warm, alive — as if the city itself had smiled.

Some paintings are not meant to be perfect. They exist so that we remember — not how love ended, but how it once felt when it was whole.