The suitcase clicked shut at 5:03 a.m.
The sound felt too loud for a house still dreaming.
Elira paused — hand resting on the handle — half expecting someone to stir, to wake, to catch her mid-leave. But no footsteps came. No voices called. Not even a floorboard creaked beneath her.
She was alone.Still.
Just as she had been in all the moments that led her to this one.
The sky outside her window was the color of bruised lilac — somewhere between night and morning. She stared at it for a moment, wondering if the sun would rise any differently now that she wasn't staying to see it.
She moved quietly, gently folding her scarf, her old journal, and that one photo she almost left behind.
The girl in the photo smiled too easily. She looked like someone who hadn't yet learned how much silence could ache.
Elira tucked the picture between the pages of her journal. Not to bring it with her — just to bury it.
She wasn't running away.She was just… done staying small in places that didn't know how to hold her.
Downstairs, the letter sat on the kitchen table.Not dramatic. Not poetic. Just the truth — plain and shaky and final.
She hadn't written it to be read.She'd written it because she needed to say it, even if no one ever heard.
"I can't keep shrinking just to make everyone else comfortable.This is not revenge. This is resurrection.I'm sorry for leaving like this.— Elira"
The taxi waited just outside the gate.Its engine hummed low, like it knew not to interrupt the silence she needed.
Elira closed the front door softly — not because of others, but because it felt wrong to slam the ending shut.
She walked down the driveway alone. No one came to stop her.No final calls, no begging her to stay.Her suitcase rolled like a whisper behind her.
The driver looked up."Airport?" he asked.She nodded once, then slid into the backseat.The door closed like a sigh.
The city outside was still waking up — quiet sky, soft fog, streetlights flickering off one by one.Inside the cab, it was warm and still.
Elira leaned her head against the window, her breath fogging the glass.
She wasn't crying.She hadn't cried in days.
Just… thinking.Overthinking, if she were honest.
Was it a mistake?Was this too much?Too far, too fast?
A month ago, she was in scrubs — rushing from ward to ward, answering calls, signing off reports like her life had a schedule and a nameplate and a salary.
Now she was leaving the country with two bags and a plan that barely held together.
People said she was brave.But bravery didn't always feel like a roar.Sometimes, it felt like sitting in the back of a taxi, wondering if you'd just destroyed the only stability you ever had.
Still, she didn't turn back.
There wasn't really anything left to turn to.
The airport was buzzing.Not loudly — just enough to remind her that the world moved, no matter who was falling apart inside it.
She checked in. Boarded. Window seat. 17A.Didn't even bother to memorize the name of the layover city.
The flight was long.She slept through most of it, or stared outside the window until her eyes hurt.
The numbness crept in like clouds — not heavy, not painful… just soft enough to mute everything else.
At some point, she stopped counting hours and let herself exist somewhere between departure and arrival.
She had imagined this part differently.
In her head, the moment her feet touched new ground, there'd be a thrill.A flicker of something like hope and excitement.
Instead, there was only humidity.A language she didn't speak.Signs she couldn't read.And the slow, creeping realization that she was entirely, absolutely alone.
Her phone lit up. She checked again.Still no message from Sena.
They had planned this together for months.Her online friend — the one who promised to help her settle in, found apartment listings, sent neighborhood suggestions, even offered to meet her at the airport.
Gone.
Unreachable.Seen 2:08 PM.
Elira sat down on a bench near Arrivals.Two bags.A folded-up dream.A SIM card that didn't work yet.
This wasn't freedom.Not yet.
This was the part no one wrote about — the in-between.
She opened her notes app. Typed a single sentence:
"Is this how She Blooms?"
She didn't know where she would sleep that night.She just knew she'd figure it out.
Like she always did.