Chapter 8 THE MEMORY OF HER

...Before Sofia, there was Lillian.

"Elijah hardly ever spoke of her, not even in his own thoughts. Yet she was always there, quietly tucked into the edges of everything. Like the last note of a song long faded, soft and distant, but still stirring something deep inside."

---

Lillian had been his first in everything.

First kiss,

First love,

First heartbreak,

She had walked into his life with the kind of wild confidence that unsettled him: Art major, Loud laughter, Unapologetic opinions. She never asked for permission to take up a space, she just did;

Elijah had loved that about her.

She taught him how to dance in the rain-literally, and had once painted a mural across the back wall of his college apartment while he slept.

"You're too quiet," she told him once, curled beside him on a Thursday morning. "I want to hear what you think before the world edits it out of you."

But the world had other plans,

And so did she.

After two years of being everything to each other, Lillian had accepted a scholarship to an arts residency in Spain, it was a six-month program, No big deal, they said.

They planned visits, Called daily, Sent long, breathless emails.

But six months became eight,

And then ten.

Eventually, her calls became less frequent; The emails shorter. The "I love you" at the end of each message came less quickly, until it stopped coming at all.

He didn't really blame her,

People change.

But she'd left behind a version of him that never quite returned,

The part that used to believe love could be enough.

---

A particular night after so many years of not keeping in touch with her, Elijah was seated in his apartment, listening to the soft noise of the city and the rhythmic hum of the ceiling fan. A box of old letters lay open on his lap, Lillian's handwriting still as familiar as ever.

He hadn't meant to pull them out, but after Sofia's touch, her voice, the way she'd said "If this ends badly...", something had been stirred.

He re-read one of the letters, dated August 14, three years ago.

>"You're the kindest man I've ever known, Eli, I know what we had was real, but I also know I need to become someone outside of us, and maybe you need to become someone, too, who would stop carrying me like an echo in his chest."

He carefully wrapped the letter and put it away.

He loved Lillian,

But he had trusted her, too.

And losing that trust had taught him to build walls, soft ones, invisible ones; But walls nonetheless,

That's why Sofia scared him.

Because she was getting in before he could reinforce them.

---

Saturday morning, he had a walk with Charlie. The streets were quieter than before, the air still heavy from the week's rain. As he passed a flower stall near the corner, something stopped him,

Yellow roses.,

Lillian's favorite.

He used to bring them to her on days when he felt she was sad, when the world overwhelmed her. He'd tuck them behind her ear, and say, "You remember the details, That's why I love you."

He bought a small bunch and didn't know why.

Back home, he put them in a chipped glass on the kitchen table. Charlie watched in curiosity, then laid his head back down on the rug.

Elijah couldn't stop staring at the flowers.

---

Sofia texted later that afternoon.

" I thought about what I said yesterday, About it being real. I meant it."

" I know", he replied.

Then added:

"Can we slow down?"

"Yes", she answered. "We can."

But even as he read her response, he knew the slowing wouldn't last forever.

The thing between them had momentum now,

It wasn't loud, not wild,

But steady and Real.

The kind of current that doesn't ask for permission,

Only direction.

---

That night, Elijah opened his journal again.

He wrote:

"I can't tell if I'm more afraid of hurting her or losing myself all over again. Maybe it's both. But here's what I do know: there's something in the way she looks at me that brings back the man I used to be. And something in her voice that makes me want to find him again."

He closed the journal,

Walked over to the window.

And whispered her name like a prayer.