A girl walked in, her dark hair plastered to her forehead from the drizzle. She was carrying a thick, water-stained notebook the exact shade of a peacock’s throat. Cobalt. Electric. Alive.
The girl's name was Adèle. She was a literature student who wrote everything in that blue notebook—poems, grocery lists, letters she’d never send. She had a way of tilting her head when she listened, like she was trying to hear the silence between your words.
Over the next three weeks, Emma’s art changed. Her charcoal sketches of street corners and coffee cups gave way to something else. She bought a set of oil paints—the good kind, the kind that cost a week’s worth of ramen noodles. And she bought every shade of blue the store had: ultramarine, cerulean, phthalo, navy.
Emma never believed in love at first sight until she saw the girl with the blue notebook.
For the first time, she reached out and touched Emma’s cheek. Her fingers were cold from the rain, but the gesture—that was summer.