The snow had stopped, but the cold clung to the edges of the evening. Elirys stepped out of the library, her footsteps soft against the wet pavement, the warmth of that stained-glass corner still folded somewhere deep in her coat. The world looked washed clean, pale rooftops glowing under a dull evening sky, trees bare but not lifeless, like they were waiting for something.
She pulled her scarf higher and started walking. The sketchbook in her bag felt heavier than it should, as if Hailey's kindness had been tucked inside with the pages.
That gentleness… it lingered. But so did the ache beneath it.
She didn't go home right away. Not to the little apartment where silence lived with her, curling up in the corners like a loyal pet. Instead, her steps wandered, slow and unsure, led not by direction but by feeling—like a ghost retracing the path to something lost.
She passed shuttered cafés, windows glowing with lives she wasn't part of. People inside laughed, moved with purpose, with belonging. Elirys walked on, unseen by the world and unsure whether she wanted it any other way.
Her footsteps finally led her to a bench near the river, half-covered in snow. She sat, the wood cold beneath her, and stared out at the frozen water. Her breath fogged the air. Her hands trembled, from the chill.
The quiet around her reminded her of home. Something that still lived in her ribcage.
Not the apartment.
Not now.
But the home she used to live in. The one with mismatched mugs and warm blankets, with voices that once sounded like comfort. She hadn't seen her parents in months. The distance had grown slowly, not in arguments or slammed doors, but in things unsaid. Misunderstandings that hardened into silence.
They loved her. She knew that.
They had given her everything - books, safety, shelter. Birthdays never went unnoticed. There were hugs, sometimes. Smiles, occasionally. But never understanding. Never space for the person she was trying to be.
They thought she didn't love them. That she pulled away out of spite. That she was cold and selfish and strange. The said that she was ungrateful.
But how could they not see? Every quiet act of rebellion was not hate, it was desperation. A girl trying to grow into someone they could be proud of. Someone who could one day give them the life they deserved.
So that one day, she could give them everything they had given her.
So that maybe they would finally see her.
But they'd never understood that.
They only saw her distance as defiance. Her solitude as rejection.
She would never forget the night their words broke something deep inside her.
"You shouldn't have been born.""It's our fault. You were a mistake."
They didn't mean it, not really. They were tired. Frustrated. But words, once spoken, don't vanish. They root into the soul.
And no amount of apologies afterward could unmake what had been said.
They thought she hated them.
She didn't.
She had just never known how to explain that everything she was trying to become was for them.
Elirys pulled her sketchbook from her bag and opened to a blank page. The pencil in her hand moved slowly, drawing a house. Small, warm, glowing from the inside.
A house where someone waited.
A house she had never lived in.
She drew a girl on the outside, watching the windows light up one by one. Never knocking. Never walking in. Just watching. Wanting.
She shaded in the snow around the figure, the sky above, the dark beneath her feet. She pressed too hard, the page nearly tearing.
She loved them.
Even now.
Even after all of it.
Even if they never saw her.
She didn't want revenge. She didn't want apologies.
She just wanted to stop feeling like love was something she had to prove.
The wind tugged at her coat, sharp and playful. She looked up at the river again, and for a moment, she imagined what it might feel like to walk across the ice and disappear.
Not to die.
Just to vanish.
To leave behind the girl no one ever fully understood, and return as someone new. Someone simple. Someone enough.
When the wind picked up, she tucked the sketchbook away and stood.
The ache inside her wasn't rage. It was mourning. Grief for a closeness that never was.
And maybe never could be.
As she walked back through the snow-covered streets, she whispered something into the night:
"I love you," she whispered into the night, not knowing if she meant it for her parents or for herself. "Even if you never believe it."
The snow caught her breath and carried it away, tucking it somewhere into the dark sky.
But still, she said them.
And for tonight, that was enough.