Part 136
The door clicked shut. The sound was small, but it rippled through her chest like thunder.
For a long moment, Aura didn't move. The sunlight had shifted, spilling across the table where he'd left the paper bag. She stared at it — at the neat fold of the paper, the way his touch lingered in the creases.
He had really been here.
Not a dream. Not a ghost of her mind conjuring him again.
Adrian.
She whispered his name under her breath, and it tasted both sweet and bitter.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened the bag. Inside were sketchbooks and pencils — the kind she used to use when she waited for him to come home. The smell of paper and graphite filled her head with memories: his soft voice in the morning, the warmth of his laugh, the way he looked at her before he remembered he shouldn't.
For a heartbeat, the world tilted, and she could almost believe they were back in that small house again — quiet, hidden, safe.
He said he thought of her sometimes.
That single word — sometimes — repeated itself in her mind until it lost all meaning.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
A smile touched her lips, fragile but deep.
That was enough.
She didn't need to own him. Not anymore.
But knowing she still lived somewhere inside his mind — even if just a flicker in his songs, a ghost in his melodies — it filled the hollowness inside her with something that almost felt like peace.
Almost.
When the nurse came to check on her, Alex was still sitting by the window, sketching quietly.
The lines on the page took shape slowly: a man's profile, head bowed slightly, eyes closed as if listening to something only he could hear.
Her pencil paused. Then, gently, she added a small sunflower in the corner of the drawing — blooming just beside his hand.
You'll never be alone again, she thought.
Even if you forget me, I'll always remember you enough for both of us.
Outside, the world was bright and loud — the same world that had once stolen him from her.
But here, inside the quiet of her white room, she still had him in the only way that mattered to her now:
in memory,
in sketches,
and in the silence that carried his name.