Chapter 29 – If Healing Had a Voice
The café was quiet.
It had always been Elira's favorite kind. Dim lights. Worn-out couches. Music playing low enough to get lost in thoughts.
They sat in the farthest corner, two mugs between them, untouched.
Kael watched the steam rising from his coffee like it held answers he didn't know how to ask.
Elira watched him.
"I didn't think we'd ever sit across from each other again," she said, breaking the silence gently.
Kael gave a faint, tired smile. "I imagined it a hundred different ways. This is the first time it's real."
"And does it feel like how you imagined?"
He shook his head. "No. It feels… heavier."
She nodded. "It is."
Neither of them touched the past just yet. Not fully. It was too soon. Too sharp.
Instead, Elira said, "I kept your hoodie."
Kael blinked, caught off guard. "The black one with the torn sleeve?"
She smiled. "Yeah. It smelled like you for months."
"…Did you ever wear it?"
"Every night I missed you."
That silence again.
The kind that wraps around you, not pulls you apart.
Kael finally took a sip of his coffee. "I thought you'd hate me forever."
"I did," Elira replied, her voice soft but honest. "But love and hate aren't opposites. They're neighbors. And I kept opening the door."
He looked down at his hands. "How do you even begin to forgive someone like me?"
"You don't start with forgiveness," she said. "You start with truth."
Kael looked up. "Then here's mine—there's still a part of me that's broken. I don't know if I know how to be loved right. But I want to learn."
Elira leaned forward, eyes never leaving his. "Then let's be broken together. At least this time, we won't be alone."
Just then, the bell above the door jingled.
A woman stepped in. Drenched from the rain. Her gaze scanned the café—until it landed on Kael.
He froze.
"Elira," he said slowly, "there's something I never told you."
The woman began walking toward them.
Elira didn't blink. "Kael… who is she?"
He looked at Elira, guilt written in his silence.
The woman finally reached the table.
Her voice cut like wind.
"You left without saying goodbye, Kael. And now you're back—playing house?"
Elira stood slowly, her expression unreadable.
The letters unsent were only the beginning.
Now came the confessions.