Every Wall We Tear Down

She looked down at him. He was close enough that she could see the small scar on his jaw from a bicycle fall when he was twelve. She’d been there for that, too.
“I remember when she put this up,” he said quietly, looking at the paper in his hand.
“So do I.” Nora’s voice came out softer than she intended. “We were maybe nine. She let us help. I pasted mine on crooked and she said it was perfect.”
Daniel looked up at her. “She always said that.”
“Even when it wasn’t true.”
“Maybe especially then.”
Nora climbed down from the ladder. They stood in the half-stripped room, the old house breathing quietly around them, and she felt something in her chest loosen — some knot she’d been carrying so long she’d stopped noticing its weight.
“Daniel.” She said his name carefully, like she was testing whether it still fit in her mouth the way it used to. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. After London. I kept meaning to, and then it felt too late, and then it felt impossible.”
He was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet she’d once been afraid of but was learning, again, to trust.
“I could have called too,” he said. “I didn’t. I told myself you were happy there.”
“I was. And I wasn’t.” She looked at the bare wall where the flowers had been. “I missed this place. I missed her.” She paused. “I missed you.”
The words landed between them, quiet and true.
Daniel reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture so familiar it made her breath catch. His hand stayed at her jaw for just a moment, warm and steady. “I’m still here,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She leaned into his hand, just slightly. Outside, the Portland evening was turning gold through the tall windows, the light falling across the newly sanded floors in long warm stripes. The house smelled like sawdust and fresh paint and, faintly, like the lavender Edith had always kept in the hallway.
Nora smiled — a real one, the kind that reached her eyes. “The porch still needs work,” she said.
“It does,” he agreed. His thumb traced a slow line along her cheekbone. “We’ve got time.”
They sat on the front steps as the sun went down over Maple Street, shoulders touching, coffee going cold between their hands. The house behind them was not finished. Neither were they. But for the first time in three years, that felt less like a wound and more like a beginning — something worth building slowly, carefully, room by room.

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About the Author

Sophie Alderidge — a student of human attachment, for whom friendship always hides something more. Just do not mention about your handsome brother or his friend …

— Sophie Alderidge

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Categories: Romances, Slow Burn

Tags: 10min stories, contemporary romance, emotional fiction, heartwarming, Portland, renovation, romance, second chance, short story, slow-burn

July 18, 2026

10min-stories