✦ Chapter 35 ✦
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Love.
What was love, really?
Elian had spent his entire life believing love was something gentle, something warm. He had grown up watching it bloom quietly between his parents—in the way his father would brush a kiss against his mother's temple when he thought no one was watching, or how his mother would sigh contentedly whenever Elian fell asleep between them during storms. Love had seemed safe then. Soft. Like something that wrapped around you and promised you would never fall.
But lying here now, staring blankly at the ceiling while tears slipped soundlessly into his hair, Elian wondered if love had ever truly been kind.
