Elia didn't sleep right away.
After she closed her journal, she sat by the window, watching the moon.
It was waning now—soft, imperfect, but still glowing.
She whispered, "Thank you," not to Kael, not to Luca, but to herself.
Because she had made it.
Through the silence.
Through the ache.
Through the waiting.
She stood and walked to her shelf.
Pulled out every sketchpad she had filled since the day Kael left.
There were twenty-three.
Each one a chapter.
Each one a survival.
She opened the first.
The rooftop.
The hoodie.
The boy with the crooked smile.
Then the second.
The silence.
The fight.
The girl in his stories.
Then the third.
The letter she never sent.
The apology that came too late.
The moment she didn't reply.
She flipped through them all.
Not to relive.
To remember.
Because forgetting wasn't the goal.
Forgiving was.
She took a blank sheet and began to write—not a sketch this time, but a letter to herself.
> "Dear Elia,
> You did not break.
> You bent. You ached. You paused.
> But you did not break.
> You loved someone who couldn't hold you.
> And you still chose softness.
> That is strength.
> You waited.
> And when the waiting ended, you didn't collapse.
> You created.
> You glowed.
> You began again.
> This is your legacy.
> Not the heartbreak.
> The healing."
She folded the letter and tucked it into the final sketchpad.
Then she wrapped all twenty-three in gold ribbon.
Not to hide them.
To honor them.
She placed them in a box labeled:
"The Girl Who Waited. The Woman Who Didn't."
Then she opened a new sketchpad.
Fresh. Untouched.
She wrote on the first page:
"Volume One: After."
Because this wasn't the end.
It was the beginning.
She sketched herself again.
Not on a rooftop.
On a bridge.
Walking forward.
Hair loose.
Eyes open.
Sketchpad in hand.
No one beside her.
Not because she was alone.
Because she was enough.
She added stars.
Not fading.
Rising.
She added the moon.
Not waiting.
Watching.
She added a caption beneath the sketch:
> "I am no longer the girl in someone else's story.
> I am the author now."
She closed the pad.
Took a deep breath.
And smiled.
Tomorrow, she'd meet Luca for coffee.
Tomorrow, she'd start a new project.
Tomorrow, she'd live.
But tonight, she honored the girl who waited.
The girl who cried.
The girl who sketched her goodbye.
And it was beautiful.