Chapter 3 – Letters Unsent
Arden’s apartment overlooked the woods where they used to
build forts as children. His writing desk faced the window, where bare branches
clawed at the sky.
He had started a new novel the night Elena came back. A
story about a girl with two mirrors, each reflecting a different future. He
called it Ashes in April.
He wrote in bursts—early morning, late night, when the ache
inside him became too loud to ignore. Sometimes he imagined her reading it.
Other times he imagined burning the pages.
A letter sat on his desk drawer, yellowed and wrinkled. He
had written it five years ago and never sent it.
You make the world quieter. Not dull—just clearer. I don’t
know what I am without you. I don’t know if I want to know.
- A.”
He thought about rewriting it. Updating the words. But some
things didn’t age. They only haunted.
Chapter 4 – The Portrait
Luca’s studio was tucked above a bakery that always smelled
of cinnamon and regret.
Elena visited one afternoon when the sky hung low with rain.
The place was chaos—canvases leaning against walls, sketches scattered across
the floor, jars of brushes like tiny soldiers. In the corner sat a
half-finished painting.
It was her.
Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted like she was
about to speak. But the expression on her face—tender, fierce, afraid—wasn’t
one she’d ever seen in a mirror.
“I didn’t mean to paint you,” he said. “You just kept
showing up in the brushstrokes.”
She stared at the portrait. “I look… lost.”
“No,” he said softly. “You look real.”
She didn’t know whether to thank him or run.
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