Something Like Light
It wasn't their first date.
Might've been their third. Or fifth. It was already hard to tell.
He was already waiting. Same spot as always. Same lazy slouch against the gallery railing, like the city was built around him. Theon looked up when she approached, grinning like he'd been expecting her all along.
Theon looked up when she approached, grinning like he'd known she'd show.
"You came," he said, easy.
"You always this smug?"
"Only when I'm right."
Meg rolled her eyes but didn't turn back. She could've. The train station was only two blocks down. But instead, she let him fall into step beside her.
Like it was nothing.
Like they'd done this before.
Like they'd do it again.
They didn't make plans, not really. They just met - between shifts at whatever job she hadn't quit yet, between the hours he lost in his studio, between the gaps that life offered when you weren't paying attention. The city filled in the rest: museum courtyards, cracked park benches, the back steps of his building where the light hit just right in the early evening.
Theon talked about light the way other people talked about music. Said it moved like memory – sharp one moment, slow the next. That scaffolding had rhythm. That shadows were stories nobody bothered to write down. He pointed things out constantly - moss on the edge of a brick wall, murals faded by sun, the way telephone wires stretched like brushstrokes across the sky.
Meg mostly listened. She liked the way he saw the world.
Not just .
It was hard not to be drawn into it. Like stepping into someone else's dream where the everything shimmered slightly, and even the silence felt like part of the painting.
They wandered into the Whitney by accident, slipping past the ticket check like it was a dare.
They moved slowly through the exhibits, Theon pausing to frown at a sculpture, muttering something about brushwork or composition. Meg was content to trail behind, until they reached the Hopper.
"Summertime." Her favourite.
She said it quietly, like a name she hadn't spoken in years.
They'd been walking through the space for nearly an hour, but this was the painting she stopped for. Like always.
The woman stood in the doorway - sunlight slicing across her body, casting long shadows behind her. One foot half-raised, like she wasn't sure whether she was coming or going. Her white dress catching the light like a promise she didn't remember making.
Meg crossed her arms loosely. Not guarded. Just comfortable. She tilted her head slightly, narrowing her eyes - not with judgment. With thought.
Theon stood beside her, hands deep in his pockets. "She's waiting," he said softly. "For someone. A lover, maybe. Someone who said they'd come back."
Meg didn't respond right away.
The painting filled the air between them.
"I don't think so," she said finally. "She's not waiting."
He turned his head toward her. "No?"
"No," Meg repeated. "She just stepped out for air."
Theon studied her, not the painting. Her posture, the soft crease between her brows. The way her voice dropped on the wordair.
"You sound certain."
"She's not expectant," Meg said. "She's not tense. She's not even hopeful."
She nodded toward the shadow behind the woman's feet. "She's breathing. She needed space. She wanted sunlight."
Theon's smile turned quiet. "Maybe she needed to feel like she still existed. Outside the room."
Meg looked at him then, something unguarded slipping through.
"Exactly."
Silence lingered.
Then he reached for her hand.
And she let him take it.
They stood there a long time, side by side. One woman, caught in sunlight. Two people pretending they understood her. A future neither of them could see yet, already waiting in the wings.
He walked her toward the bridge after, stopping just before the incline.
The skyline stretched out wide around them - buildings blinking to life, streetlamps flickering on like small, quiet promises. The air had cooled, but Meg hadn't noticed until she stopped walking. She folded her arms against the breeze, but didn't move.
Theon stood beside her, his hands buried in his coat pockets. They looked out together for a long time. The city buzzed below them, but up here in the in-between, it felt like the pause between breaths.
"I keep thinking about how I'd paint you," he said, quiet. "How the light hits your face when you laugh."
Meg narrowed her eyes. "You don't even know me."
He smiled. "No. But Iseeyou."
Meg didn't say anything for a moment.
She just watched the light scatter across the water. Felt the pull in her chest - not hard, not sudden. Just a steady tilt toward something she didn't want to name yet.
He kissed her on the walk back. No dramatic swell. No orchestrated pause.
Just the hush of the street. The taste of coffee on his mouth. The curve of her smile between them.
Days blurred.
She found herself at his studio more than she'd planned. Sometimes she brought her sketchbook, sometimes she didn't. Theon never asked. He worked barefoot, paint in his hair, the music low and unbothered. He didn't fill the silence. Didn't need her to either.
Some nights they sat by the window, sharing a cigarette neither of them ever really finished. Meg didn't smoke. Not usually. Not before this. But there was something about the ritual - the quiet flick of the lighter, the way Theon passed it back without looking, the soft exhale that filled the space between them.
She didn't like the taste. But she liked the rhythm. It felt like a conversation without needing words. And in those moments, the city felt like theirs alone.
She didn't tell Flynn. Didn't bring it up to Esme.
Not because she was hiding it, exactly. But because, for once, she wanted something that was just hers.
That mattered.
She knew better than to name it.
Not yet.
It could still be nothing.
A flicker. A maybe. A moment.
But it felt good.
And she wasn't used to that being enough.
Author's Note:
It's great to be back!
This chapter is dedicated to one of my oldest friends, who taught me about Hopper on the back of the school bus and used 'Summertime' as a test for all her dates during university.
Next chapter is locked and (almost) loaded, so I hope I'll update before the weekend is out.
Thank you, as always.
CB