Elena stared at the ceiling like it might offer answers.
The air in her small apartment felt too still. Too quiet.
Even the shadows on the walls looked unfamiliar, stretched long and jagged under the faint streetlight that filtered through her window.
She hadn't spoken much that week.
Not to Liam.
Not to the girls.
Not even to herself.
Something inside her felt… bruised. Not broken, just constantly aching—like a bone that had been cracked and never healed properly.
She didn't know why it hurt so much to not see Luca anymore.
She wasn't supposed to want his presence.
But now that it was gone, it felt like a part of her had gone missing too.
---
She reached for her old journal.
It had dust on it. She hadn't touched it since she left the orphanage.
Page after page, her ten-year-old handwriting bled out with anger and loneliness. Crayon drawings of a girl standing alone in a playground. Scribbled lines about Mommy said she'd come back but she never did.
And one sentence that appeared again and again in messy blue ink:
"Maybe I'm not worth staying for."
---
The tears surprised her. She didn't realize she was crying until one fell onto the paper.
Wiping her face, she whispered, "It's happening again."
She hadn't let herself think about the past for a long time.
But the silence Luca left behind had forced it all back.
The foster families. The smiling social workers with broken promises. The way she'd watch parents come pick up their "real" children and leave her sitting by the window with a backpack she never got to unpack.
---
She remembered the first time she met Luca.
The fear. The silence. The mystery in his eyes.
And the way he never spoke to her—but always saw her.
That was the thing that haunted her now.
Luca had seen her in a way no one ever did. Like she wasn't just a background character in life's story.
But now he was gone too.
And that familiar thought returned like a curse:
"Maybe I'm too easy to forget."
---
Across the city, Luca sat on the rooftop of a hotel, a glass of untouched whiskey beside him.
He stared at the stars without seeing them.
His fingers gripped the edge of the chair so hard his knuckles turned white.
"She's starting to fade," he whispered.
And it terrified him.
Because he hadn't stayed away to protect himself.
He stayed away to protect her.
But maybe he'd miscalculated.
Because if she stopped feeling anything for him…
Then what had all this been for?