Dearest readers,
Nora Ellis doesn’t paint anymore. She doesn’t hope. She’s spent years surviving—but not really living. Until a mysterious invitation gives her one week in a version of her life where she never shut herself off… and Julian, the friend she never dared love, already knows her heart.
In this timeline, she teaches art again. Her home is full of color. And the life she lost might still be waiting—if she’s brave enough to claim it.
Fans of The Midnight Library, Before I Called You Mine, and The Garden of Small Beginnings will fall for this tender, hopeful romcom about grief, healing, and second chances.
Perfect for readers who crave:
✦ emotional healing arcs
✦ gentle, introspective love stories
✦ soft heroes who see the real you
✦ quiet magic and deeply earned joy
With my heartfelt appreciation,
Daisy
👉Have you read it? Please consider reviewing it on Amazon, Goodreads, or Bookbub.
Nora Byrne did not believe in sentiment before noon. Especially not on a Thursday, especially not in the rain, and especially not when her tea tasted off and her last customer had been a tourist asking if she “did commissions of people’s pets but, like, as angels.”
It was 11:42 a.m. and raining just hard enough to count as an excuse for everything she wasn’t doing.
She flipped the “Open” sign on her gallery door to “Back at 1” even though she knew she wouldn’t be. The foot traffic on this given Thursday was dismal anyway—three browsers, one serious looker who’d left without buying, and Mrs. Chen from the flower shop next door dropping off wilted daisies she thought Nora might “find inspiring.”
Nora had smiled. Said thank you. Waited until Mrs. Chen left before dumping them in the trash.
She was very good at smiling and waiting.
The gallery was small enough that she could see everything from the counter—eight easels displaying local artists’ work, her own paintings relegated to the back corner where the lighting made everything look like it was apologizing for existing. Clean white walls. Polished concrete floors. The kind of sterile perfection that said, “serious art space”, but whispered, “emotionally unavailable.”
She made herself a fresh cup of tea that she wouldn’t drink and stared at the corner where her sketchbook sat unopened. The last thing she’d attempted was a line drawing of a fern that looked like it had been through a breakup and lost custody of the soil.
As she reached for her cup, the late morning light shifted strangely—not cloudy, exactly, but softer, like someone had adjusted the saturation on the world. She blinked, and it returned to normal.
The bell above the door chimed.
Nora looked up, already arranging her face into Professional Gallery Owner Expression #3: interested but not desperate.
A man in his sixties stepped in, shaking rain from a paint-splattered jacket. She recognized him—Franklin, a retired art teacher who came in monthly to browse and never bought anything but always had opinions.
“Nora, my dear,” he said, approaching the counter with the confidence of someone who’d never met a silence he couldn’t fill. “Terrible weather for foot traffic. How are the sales?”
“Fine,” she lied smoothly. “Steady.”
Franklin nodded knowingly, then gestured toward her corner. “Any new work from you? It’s been months since I’ve seen anything fresh.”
Nora’s smile tightened. “I’m in a... research phase.”
“Ah.” Franklin’s expression shifted to that particular blend of pity and encouragement that made her want to crawl under the counter. “You know, when I was teaching, I always told my students—the work finds you when you stop hiding from it.”
“Mm,” Nora said, which was her standard response to unsolicited advice.
Franklin wandered toward a landscape painting, squinting at it like it might reveal secrets. “You remind me of myself after my divorce. Couldn’t paint for nearly two years. Kept organizing my brushes instead.”
Nora glanced at her pristinely organized supplies. Color-coded. Arranged by size. Categorized by hostility.
“I should let you browse,” she said, already backing toward the storage room.
“Take care of yourself, dear,” Franklin called after her. “Art waits, but inspiration doesn’t.”
The storage room was barely larger than a closet, crammed with frames and shipping supplies and the portfolio she kept meaning to sort through. She closed the door and leaned against it, breathing shallow.
Routine was safer. Predictable. Brush teeth. Brew tea. Open gallery. Smile at customers. Deflect concern. Close gallery. Repeat.
There had been a time when she’d felt her hands buzz at the thought of color. When inspiration came like a sunbeam, sudden and warm and impossible to ignore. Now, it came like mail, infrequently, and feeling less like a letter and more like an unavoidable bill. She rubbed the back of her neck and moved to the back corner, where a dusty portfolio leaned against the wall like it was tired of waiting. Out of habit—or masochism—she flipped it open.
There he was.
Julian. Not in photo form, but in ink and memory. A sketch of him from years ago—loose strokes, half-finished. His eyes laughing, mouth mid-thought, the way he used to look when he was about to say something that would make her simultaneously want to kiss him and throw paint at his head.
She’d drawn this the night after they’d spent hours in her cramped studio apartment, debating whether Van Gogh was a genius or just really good at being dramatic. Julian had fallen asleep on her paint-stained couch, and she’d sketched him in the pre-dawn light, all soft lines and possibility.
She hadn’t seen him in three years.
She’d meant to throw this out a dozen times.
She hadn’t.
Her breath caught in her throat as she touched the page lightly, like it might fade if she pressed too hard. The paper was yellowed now, the edges soft with age, but the lines were still there. Still him. And for just a moment, the infinity symbol doodle in the corner—one she didn’t remember adding—seemed to shimmer.
Franklin’s voice drifted from the main gallery: “I’ll be going now, dear. Think about what I said.”
The bell chimed. The door closed.
Silence settled back around her.
Nora stared at the sketch, at Julian’s half-smile, at the version of herself who’d been brave enough to capture someone she cared about on paper. Who’d trusted her hands to hold something precious.
A soft knock startled her from the memory.
She exited the storage room.
No one was there.
Just the rain. She went to the door. And a cream-colored envelope on the ground outside the door, oddly dry for the weather.
Nora opened it slowly. No address. No name.
Just a card. Thick stock. Gold lettering that seemed to shimmer when she tilted it.
Timeline Retreats
For when your life just isn’t it.
She frowned, turning it over. Nothing but a tiny, looping infinity symbol in the corner, delicate as a signature.
Was this... spam? A wellness retreat? Some Pinterest-branded cult selling expensive meditation and overpriced crystals?
She looked back at the sketch. Julian’s face. That smile that used to make her believe in things like forever and maybe.
And for a moment—just a breath—she let herself wonder.
What if?
What if she’d been braver that night? What if she’d woken him up, told him how she felt, and risked the friendship for something more? What if she hadn’t spent the last three years perfecting the art of emotional distance?
What if she still remembered how to want things?
The rain picked up, drumming against the gallery windows. The light shifted gray and soft, the kind that made everything look like watercolor.
Nora slipped the card between the pages of the portfolio, next to Julian’s sketch.
Then closed it.
But she didn’t put it back into storage.
* * *
The next afternoon crawled by with the enthusiasm of a sedated sloth.
Two browsers. One woman who spent twenty minutes photographing paintings for “inspiration” without buying anything. A teenager who tracked mud across the floor and asked if Nora sold “anything, like, happy.”
By four-thirty, the rain had settled into a persistent drizzle, and Nora was fighting the urge to close early. Again.
She was wiping down the counter for the third time when Mrs. Chen appeared in the doorway, shaking droplets from her bright yellow umbrella.
“Nora, honey,” she called, bustling in with the determined cheer of someone who refused to let weather dictate her mood. “I brought you some soup.”
She held up a thermos decorated with dancing sunflowers—aggressively cheerful, like Mrs. Chen herself.
“You didn’t have to—” Nora started.
“Nonsense. You look thin. And sad. Thin and sad is no way to sell art.” Mrs. Chen set the thermos on the counter and studied Nora with the intensity of someone who’d raised five children and could spot emotional distress from three blocks away. “When’s the last time you created something?”
“I’m between projects,” Nora said, the lie smooth as river stone from overuse.
Mrs. Chen made a skeptical noise. “Between projects for six months? That’s not between, honey. That’s stuck.”
Nora opened her mouth to deflect, but Mrs. Chen was already moving, circling the gallery like she was conducting an inspection.
“You know,” Mrs. Chen said, pausing in front of a particularly vibrant abstract piece, “my grandson David is taking art classes at the community center. The teacher says he has ‘natural talent,’ whatever that means. I think he just likes making messes.” She turned back to Nora. “You should teach. You’d be good with kids. Patient.”
“I’m not really teacher material,” Nora said quickly.
“Why not?”
The question was simple. Direct. The kind that shouldn’t have felt like a trap but somehow did.
“I just... I prefer working alone,” Nora said.
Mrs. Chen’s expression softened. “Alone is safe. But safe doesn’t make art. Safe makes... this.” She gestured around the pristine gallery. “Pretty. Clean. Empty.”
Nora felt something sharp twist in her chest. “It’s not empty. I represent twelve local artists.”
“I’m not talking about the walls, honey.”
The words hung in the air like smoke. Mrs. Chen’s expression wasn’t unkind, but it was knowing in a way that made Nora want to hide behind the counter.
“Try the soup,” Mrs. Chen said gently. “It’s got healing powers. Or at least enough salt to make you feel something.”
She patted Nora’s hand—brief, warm, maternal—and headed for the door.
“Mrs. Chen?” Nora called after her.
“Yes, honey?”
“Thank you. For the soup. And... for checking on me.”
Mrs. Chen smiled, the kind that reached her eyes and made the rainy afternoon feel a little less gray. “That’s what neighbors do. We look out for each other.”
After she left, Nora stood alone with the thermos and the weight of being seen by someone who cared enough to bring soup on a rainy Thursday.
She unscrewed the cap. The smell rose up—ginger, garlic, something rich and nourishing—made her realize she hadn’t eaten since yesterday.
When was the last time someone had taken care of her? Really taken care of her, not just polite concern or professional courtesy, but actual, intentional kindness?
She couldn’t remember.
That realization sat heavier than she’d expected.
* * *
The bell above the gallery door jingled—a delicate chime that usually meant tourists or teenagers wanting shelter and pretending to like art.
But when Nora turned, the room was empty.
No footsteps. No wind. Just the echo of a door that hadn’t been opened.
She stepped outside, scanning the sidewalk.
The street glistened, empty of pedestrians. The streetlamp blinked its usual one-two rhythm. Across the road, the bakery was still lit up, warm and golden and full of cinnamon, like it always was. No one had passed through her door. But something shimmered—not light, not quite shadow.
Back inside, another card lay on the counter like it had always belonged there.
This one was different. Same cream stock, same gold lettering, but the message had changed:
Sometimes the door opens for you.
Are you ready to walk through?
She should throw it away. Should laugh it off as an elaborate prank or guerrilla marketing campaign.
Instead, she slid it into the drawer with her dried-up brushes and unopened birthday cards from her mother, next to the first one.
She moved to close up early. Again. Another blank day in the books.
But her hand brushed a drawer she rarely opened—the flat file where her older work lived. Pieces from art school. From the year she almost moved to Montreal for a fellowship. From when Julian had sat in her kitchen and offered critiques in the form of metaphors and homemade cookies.
She didn’t mean to open it.
But she did.
And there it was: the painting.
Not the sketch from earlier. This one was older. Messier. An early self-portrait—her face half-shadowed, one eye unfinished, the whole thing pulsing with indecision and raw want.
It was the last thing she’d painted the night before Julian graduated and moved to Portland. The night she’d almost told him she loved him. The night she’d chosen safety over truth.
The painting was aggressive in its honesty. Unfinished in all the right ways. It made her stomach ache—not because it was bad, but because it was hers. The version of her that used to feel first and fix later. Who painted like her hands were trying to outrun her fear.
She stood there for a long time, her fingers curled at her sides, breathing shallow and strange.
Then, almost against her will, she whispered, “What did I do with her?”
She didn’t expect an answer.
Which made the voice behind her even more jarring.
“You left her here. Neatly shelved between your unopened watercolors and that terrifyingly organized brush caddy.”
Nora whirled.
A woman stood in the gallery—linen-draped, sunlit despite the storm outside. Calm in the way cliffs are calm: still, but older than weather. Her hair was silver-streaked, pulled back in a way that suggested she’d never worried about being photogenic. Her eyes were the color of sea glass.
Nora’s heart stuttered.
“Who are you? How did you get in?” The woman’s smile was small and certain. “I’m Celeste. I’m simply someone who believes you’ve got more to paint. And maybe more to feel.”
She moved closer, not threatening but inevitable, like a tide.
“The door was open,” she said simply.
“No, it wasn’t. I locked—”
“Not that door.”
Celeste placed another card on the counter. Identical to the others, but this one had something new. A date. Tomorrow. And the words: One week. One heart reopened.
Nora stared. “This is insane. You can’t just—”
“I’m not doing anything,” Celestesaid gently. “I’m simply offering.”
“Offering what?”
“A glimpse,” Celeste said. “Into the life where you didn’t choose fear.”
She gestured to the self-portrait still lying open in the drawer. “The woman who painted that—she made different choices.”
“What kind of choices?”
She tilted her head. “You’re surrounded by beauty—just not your own.”
Nora’s voice came out softer than she intended. “I haven’t touched a brush in months.”
Celeste’s smile deepened. “And still, the art waits.”
She stepped closer to the portrait. “What if you could spend a week with the version of yourself who never stopped creating? Who chose love over fear?”
The questions hit like arrows, each one finding its mark.
“I don’t think I’m brave enough,” Nora whispered.
Celeste smiled like she’d been waiting for that exact admission.
“You don’t need to be brave,” she said. “Just curious.”
She handed Nora the card again—this time with a flicker of light beneath the infinity symbol. Almost a pulse.
“If you want to go,” Celeste said, stepping back like stage fog, “just sleep. Preferably with your heart a little open this time.”
And then, as softly as she’d arrived, she vanished.
Not dramatically. Not with smoke or mirrors. She simply... wasn’t there anymore.
Nora stood in the silence, holding the card.
Card in one hand.
Hope in the other.
The rain had stopped, she realized. Sunlight slanted through the gallery windows, painting everything gold.
And for the first time in longer than she dared admit... Nora didn’t feel entirely gray.
Just a little soft around the edges.
Like maybe she still remembered how to be warm.
She looked down at the self-portrait one more time. At the woman who’d been brave enough to paint her own longing.
Then she carefully closed the drawer.
But she kept the card.
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