Chapter 5 5

-Part II-

The world had begun to notice her.

Elara's name graced art columns, her face appeared in minimalist profiles-"The Recluse Who Rose," they called her. But she wasn't hiding. She was healing.

Adrian handled interviews, negotiations, and press. "You're a sensation," he said one evening, as they reviewed her next exhibition. "Are you ready for more?"

"I'm ready to stop being someone's secret," she answered.

That night, she painted something softer: a woman unraveling threads of red silk from her own chest.

She titled it: Unstitched.

Aurelian showed up at her gallery.

Not with cameras or his team-but alone. Drenched in rain, holding a folded umbrella and remorse in his eyes.

"Elara," he said quietly, "I've seen your work. I see you."

"You never looked," she replied, walking past him.

"I didn't know how," he confessed.

She turned. "Then why did you try to own what you never bothered to understand?"

He had no answer.

Adrian approached and slipped his arm around her waist-not possessively, but protectively. Aurelian stepped back, as if burned.

"I just wanted to say..." Aurelian's voice faltered. "I'm sorry."

"Then leave it at that," she said.

And he did.

Margaux's health had stabilized. Her family didn't reach out.

No demands. No guilt. Only silence.

Elara welcomed it.

She donated anonymously-to children's hospitals, to rare blood research. She gave, but no one knew her name.

For the first time, giving didn't cost her.

One afternoon, Adrian brought her a letter. "It's from your mother," he said, eyes cautious.

Elara held it but didn't open it. She placed it on a shelf, beside her old sketchbooks.

Some wounds needed no closure-just distance.