Chapter Fifteen: The House of Quiet Tides
The morning dawned with a frantic, suitcase-flinging energy that was wholly foreign to the Snow household. Amaya's parents were headed to a cousin's wedding in another city, a trip planned for months. Liam, ever the opportunist, had secured a ticket to join them under the flimsy guise of "family support," but Amaya knew it was for the free food and the chance to flirt with distant relatives.
"You're sure you'll be alright, sweetheart?" her mother fretted for the tenth time, checking the contents of her overnight bag for the third. "Three days is a long time."
"Mom, I'm seventeen. I have a zoology midterm the day after tomorrow. I need to study, not party. I'll be fine," Amaya insisted, trying to project an air of studious maturity. The truth was a bubbling spring of excitement in her chest.
"And the Rowons are happy to have you?" her father asked, his brow furrowed with paternal concern.
"Elara insisted," Amaya said, which was true. When her mother had mentioned the trip to their neighbor, Elara had clasped her hands together. "Oh, you must let her stay with us! It will be no trouble at all. Aris is studying day and night for his surgery rotation exams; he's barely human. It would be lovely to have some cheerful company in the house." The invitation had been extended and accepted with a speed that left Amaya slightly dizzy.
"And his father? Colonel Rowon is home?" her father pressed. He had a deep, unspoken respect for the man, a decorated military surgeon who was rarely in the country.
"He's on leave for the week," Amaya confirmed. The presence of the formidable Colonel was the only cloud on her otherwise sunny horizon.
With final hugs and repeated instructions to call twice a day, her family piled into the car and disappeared down the street. Silence descended, thick and strange. Amaya stood in the empty driveway, her small duffel bag at her feet, and looked at the Rowon house. It seemed different now—not just a place to visit, but a temporary home. A stage.
Taking a deep breath, she crossed the lawn.
Elara opened the door before she could knock, her warm hazel eyes crinkling in a smile. "Amaya! Come in, come in. I've put you in the guest room, just across from Aris's. I hope that's alright." There was a knowing, gentle sparkle in her gaze that made Amaya blush.
"That's perfect, thank you so much, Mrs. Rowon."
"Elara, please. 'Mrs. Rowon' makes me feel like my mother-in-law." She led Amaya upstairs to a neat, sunlit room done in soft creams and blues. It was directly opposite a closed door that Amaya knew, from years of observation, belonged to Aris. Her heart gave a traitorous thump.
"Now, make yourself at home. I know you have studying to do. The Colonel is in his study, and Aris…" Elara gestured vaguely down the hall, "…is wherever Aris is when he's buried in books. Probably the library. Lunch is at one."
Left alone, Amaya unpacked her few things, her textbooks, and her new Atlas of Forgotten Kingdoms. She ran a finger over the spine. He's just across the hall. The thought was both thrilling and terrifying.
The Rowon house operated on a different frequency than her own. It was a house of quiet tides. The muffled, precise tones of a news anchor filtered from the Colonel's study. The soft hum of the refrigerator. The occasional, rhythmic tap of Elara's knitting needles from the living room. And silence from behind Aris's door.
Amaya tried to study at the desk in her room, but her attention kept drifting to the window that faced their shared porches, to the faint sound of a page turning she thought she heard next door. Giving up, she took her zoology notes and went downstairs, settling at the kitchen table.
Elara joined her with a cup of tea. "How are the preparations going?"
"The nephridia of annelids are conspiring to defeat me," Amaya grumbled, pushing her hair back.
Elara laughed. "It sounds dreadful. You know, Aris used to make up ridiculous mnemonics for things like that. He'd never admit it now, of course."
"Really?" Amaya leaned forward, fascinated by this glimpse of a less-serious Aris.
"Oh yes. For the cranial nerves, he had a song. It was absurd, but he never forgot them." Elara's smile was fond and a little sad. "He's always pushed himself so hard. Ever since he was a boy, it was like he felt he had to earn his place in the world. His father's shadow is… long."
Amaya thought of the stern, upright man in the study. "Is the Colonel very strict?"
"He is a man of duty and discipline. He loves his son fiercely, but he shows it by expecting excellence. Aris has never wanted to be anything less." Elara sighed, sipping her tea. "Sometimes I wish he'd allow himself to be a little less perfect. To make a messy, human mistake."
Like falling for the girl next door? Amaya thought wildly but didn't dare say.
The morning melted away in easy conversation. Elara was a wonderful talker, full of stories about her work as a retired librarian, about the places they'd lived during the Colonel's postings, about a young Aris who collected fossils and hated getting his hair cut. Amaya stored each detail away like a precious gem.
Lunch was a quiet affair. The Colonel emerged—a tall, broad-shouldered man with Aris's sharp bone structure and a gaze that seemed to assess and categorize everything in its path. He nodded at Amaya. "Miss Snow. Your father tells me you are holding your own in a demanding program. That is commendable."
"Thank you, sir," Amaya said, trying to match his formal tone.
He asked her a few pointed questions about her course structure, nodded at her answers, and then retreated behind his newspaper. The conversation was like a brief, efficient military briefing.
Aris did not appear for lunch.
"He's in the zone," Elara explained with a wave of her hand. "I'll leave a plate for him."
In the afternoon, Amaya's resolve to study properly crumbled completely under the combined weight of curiosity and proximity. She offered to help Elara prepare dinner, and they worked side-by-side in the comfortable kitchen, chatting about everything and nothing. Amaya felt a warmth she hadn't anticipated. This wasn't just staying next door; this was being folded into the rhythm of his life. She was learning the cupboard where the spices were kept, the particular way his mother chopped vegetables, the view from his kitchen sink.
My future mother-in-law? The thought, which had been a silly daydream before, now felt dangerously tangible, wrapped in the scent of sautéing garlic and Elara's lavender hand cream.
As evening drew in, the front door opened and closed. Firm, familiar footsteps came down the hall. Aris appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking like a man returning from a intellectual war zone. His hair was a wreck, his glasses were smudged, and there was a deep line of fatigue between his brows. He carried the scent of old library books and cold air.
His eyes found Amaya first, standing at the counter beside his mother, holding a wooden spoon. He stopped dead, his brain visibly processing her presence in his domestic space. It wasn't annoyance she saw first, but simple, utter confusion, as if a page from one of her fantasy books had suddenly inserted itself into his medical textbook.
"Amaya," he stated.
"Aris," she replied, trying for nonchalance. "How was the library?"
"Adequate." His gaze shifted to his mother, a silent question.
"Amaya's family is out of town, darling. She's staying with us for a few days while she studies for her exam," Elara explained cheerfully, as if housing the neighbor girl was a perfectly ordinary Tuesday occurrence.
"I see," he said, the words clipped. He looked back at Amaya, his hazel eyes sweeping over her—her borrowed apron, her probably-flushed cheeks. "Do not let her distract you from your work, Mother. She is proficient at distraction."
"I'm helping!" Amaya protested.
"I am certain you are," he said, in a tone that suggested her help was as useful as a parasol in a hurricane. But then, as he turned to leave, he paused. "The exam is on invertebrate excretory systems?"
"Yes," Amaya said, surprised he remembered.
He gave a short nod. "Review the difference between protonephridia and metanephridia. You consistently conflate them." And with that piece of unsolicited, hyper-specific advice, he disappeared upstairs.
Elara met Amaya's gaze and winked. "See? He worries."
Dinner was a slightly less formal affair with Aris present, though he said little, eating quickly while scanning notes on his tablet. The Colonel asked him a terse question about a surgical procedure, and Aris answered in equally technical, precise language. It was a conversation in code, a display of mutual, respect-filled rigor. Amaya watched, fascinated by this new facet of him—the son in his father's house, striving to meet an unspoken standard.
Later, as Amaya washed her face in the guest bathroom, she heard the floorboards creak outside. She opened the door a crack to see Aris, back from the bathroom himself, standing in the dimly lit hallway. He was just in a t-shirt and sweats, his feet bare. He looked younger, softer, stripped of his daytime armor.
He saw her and stilled.
"Can't sleep?" she whispered, the intimacy of the hour and the hallway making her bold.
"I sleep," he said, as if it were a task to be performed efficiently. "You should be asleep. Your cognitive function will be impaired tomorrow otherwise."
"I was reviewing metanephridia," she said, a small smile playing on her lips. "As instructed."
Something flickered in his tired eyes. Something almost like approval. "Good."
They stood there for a moment in the silent, shadowy hall, two islands in a sleeping house. The distance between their doors had never felt so small, or so vast.
"Goodnight, Aris," she said softly.
He hesitated, his hand on his doorknob. "Goodnight, Amaya." He paused, then added, so quietly she almost missed it, "Do not let the house noises startle you. It is just the old pipes."
Then he slipped into his room and closed the door, leaving her in the hallway with a heart so full it felt too big for her chest. She wasn't just staying in his house. She was living, for a few days, in the quiet, tidal rhythms of his world. And he, in his own abrupt, reluctant way, was making space for her within it.