The Love We Found in Autumn Rain

The Love We Found in Autumn Rain
By Lila Hart

It was raining the day I met him—one of those soft autumn rains that turns the city into a watercolor painting. Leaves clung to sidewalks like forgotten memories, and the air smelled like cinnamon and change.

I had just lost my job that morning. The layoff email sat unread in my inbox while I walked the streets of Portland in a daze, umbrella forgotten, coat soaked through. I stopped in front of a tiny bookstore I’d never noticed before, the kind with fogged-up windows and a bell that jingled when the door opened.

He was inside, crouched by the poetry section, humming a song I recognized but couldn’t name.

“You’re dripping on Frost,” he said without looking up.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

He stood and smiled—a slow, lopsided smile that warmed the space between us. “Robert Frost,” he said, gesturing to the book my umbrella was threatening to ruin. “Tragic way to go, death by umbrella.”

I laughed. Actually laughed, for the first time that day.

He introduced himself as Rowan, and we spent the next hour wandering aisles and sharing favorite lines from dog-eared books. When I told him I’d just been laid off, he didn’t offer pity. He simply handed me a copy of The Alchemist and said, “Sometimes, the universe breaks your heart to point you in the right direction.”

We didn’t exchange numbers. I left the bookstore feeling both lighter and lonelier than I had in months.

But fate, as it turns out, was stubborn.

I ran into Rowan again a week later—same rain, same bookstore. He was buying a copy of Wuthering Heights. “For someone I haven’t met yet,” he said cryptically.

What time, we left together.

We walked the streets under a shared umbrella, sipping coffee and letting the rain blur the edges of our fears. He told me about his sister, lost too soon to cancer. I told him about my dreams of opening a little publishing house someday. We spoke like strangers who’d known each other in a past life, remembering more than discovering.

Autumn turned the trees to flame, and with each rainy afternoon, I found myself falling—not just for the season or the comfort of routine, but for the quiet way Rowan saw the world.

He never made grand gestures. He simply showed up—with poems scribbled on napkins, leaves pressed into books, and quiet affirmations like “You’re enough. Just like this.”

We kissed for the first time under a maple tree in the park, raindrops clinging to our faces like nature’s confetti. And in that moment, I knew. Love didn’t always arrive in fireworks or fanfare. Sometimes, it came in whispers and watercolors.

But seasons change.

Rowan got a fellowship offer in New York. A dream he couldn’t ignore. He asked if I’d come with him.

I said no.

Not because I didn’t love him—but because I finally loved myself enough to chase my own dream too. For the first time, I wasn’t afraid to stand in the rain alone.

We promised to write. No expectations. Just truth.

It’s been a year now. I opened my publishing house three months ago. It’s small, scrappy, and utterly mine.

Last week, a package arrived at my office.

Inside: a first edition of Wuthering Heights. Inside the cover, Rowan’s handwriting:
“For someone I’ve already met. Let’s try again—with a little more sun this time.”

I stepped outside. It was raining again. Gently, hopefully.

And I smiled.