Chapter Four - Unspoken Vows
871 Words
I woke up with a dull ache behind my eyes and the metallic taste of regret coating my tongue.
The living room was dim, sunlight leaking through the blinds like it was afraid to come all the way in. My dress was crumpled. My heels were discarded near the door, and a glass of water sat on the coffee table—one I hadn’t poured.
I hadn’t dreamed him.
He was real.
The silent savior.
But I had no name. No face. Just the echo of strong arms and a calm voice that said I didn’t need to know who he was.
I leaned back on the couch and exhaled. I felt… fragile. Like one wrong breath would splinter me into a thousand jagged pieces.
A soft knock rattled the door.
“Elara?” Lina’s voice floated in from the hallway.
I groaned, dragging myself up. “Come in. It’s open.”
She pushed the door open and stepped in, a paper bag in one hand and concern written all over her face. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, rubbing my temples.
“Hangover?”
“Emotional trauma. But yeah, that too.”
She placed the bag on the coffee table and pulled out two breakfast wraps and a bottle of orange juice. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”
I took the food and stared at it. My appetite had been missing for days, buried under sadness and salt.
Lina sat beside me, crossed her legs, and leaned in. “I heard what happened last night.”
I sighed. “Let me guess. Everyone’s talking.”
“Only the people who matter to you. Me. Maybe Callum, if he wasn’t busy training or fixing his stupid car.”
I chuckled dryly, but it faded fast. “I’m just… tired, Lina. Tired of feeling like I’m not enough. Of being laughed at, judged. Jaxon—he didn’t just break up with me. He unraveled me.”
“I know.” Her voice softened. “But you can’t stay unraveled.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
She shifted, facing me more directly. “You start by deciding that you’re done living for anyone else but yourself.”
I looked at her. “That sounds poetic, but you’ve seen me. I’m not— I mean, I’m not like you.”
“Don’t you dare compare us like that,” Lina snapped, then softened. “Elara, you’re strong. You just don’t believe it yet. You’ve been giving Jaxon your power for way too long.”
I blinked, surprised. “My power?”
“Yes. You let him decide your worth. You let his words become your mirror.” Her hand found mine, warm and firm. “But it’s time to smash that mirror and build your own.”
Silence fell for a moment, her words sinking into me like slow rain on dry soil.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Then what do I do?”
She smiled. “You start small. But you start. We hit the gym, not to lose weight—but to take back your body. To feel strong in it. You pick up new clothes not because you want to impress anyone, but because you deserve to look in the mirror and smile. You wake up early, drink water, scream into a pillow, dye your hair pink if that’s what it takes. But you move. You do something. You don’t sit in this hurt like it’s home.”
I swallowed, emotion catching in my throat.
“I’ve felt like a stranger in my own skin for so long,” I admitted.
“Then it’s time to reintroduce yourself,” Lina said gently.
I looked down at my hands—at the girl who used to laugh louder, love harder, believe more.
She was still in there. Just buried under the ruins of someone who forgot her worth.
“You’re not doing this for him, Elara,” Lina continued, squeezing my hand. “You’re doing it for the girl he never saw clearly. The one we both know exists. She’s fierce. She’s brilliant. And once she rises, he’ll wish he never let her go.”
I laughed through the tears that threatened. “God, you should write self-help books.”
“I’d title it ‘Get Up and Glow, Bitch.’” she said with a grin.
That broke the dam. I laughed so hard I nearly choked on juice. Lina joined in, and for the first time in days, the weight around my heart loosened.
“Okay,” I said after catching my breath. “One step at a time.”
“One vow at a time,” Lina corrected. “Say it.”
“What?”
“Say it with me. ‘I vow to love myself the way he never could.’”
I stared at her, then nodded.
Together, we spoke: “I vow to love myself the way he never could.”
I didn’t feel completely healed. But something inside me stirred. A flicker. A pulse. A tiny flame that dared to burn again.
Maybe that was the start of something powerful.
Maybe that was my unspoken vow.
- Writer
