Chapter 7: The Woman in Traffic
1337 Words
“Isn’t that Elara Whitcombe?”
Owen Fairchild leaned toward the window, tracking the woman weaving between the motionless cars ahead of them.
Dorian looked up from the document in his hand.
He caught only a glimpse.
Dark hair tied loosely at the back of her head. A slim figure moving with impatient purpose. One hand holding her coat closed against the wind as she crossed between two lanes of stalled traffic.
Then she stepped onto the opposite pavement and disappeared around the corner.
“What did you say?” Dorian asked.
Owen settled back into his seat. “The woman who just got out of that taxi. She looked like Elara.”
Dorian closed the file.
“From behind?”
“I remember people.”
“You remember women.”
“That too.”
Dorian turned toward the empty stretch of pavement where she had vanished.
The woman at the airport had moved the same way—quickly, as if slowing down would allow the entire world to inconvenience her at once.
Owen studied him.
“You remember her, don’t you?”
“Of course I remember her.”
Everyone at Westbridge Academy had remembered Elara Whitcombe.
She had been one of the few students who consistently placed near the top of their year without treating academic achievement as a sacred duty. She argued with teachers when she thought a question was badly written, defended classmates she barely knew, and acted as though rules were reasonable suggestions rather than instructions.
She had also been the only person who spoke to Dorian as if his silence were a personal challenge.
Owen smiled. “She was one of the only people who ever came close to beating you.”
“Julian came closer.”
“Julian spent every waking hour trying.”
“Elara didn’t?”
“She pretended not to care.”
Dorian almost said that pretending had always been one of her weaker skills.
Instead, he looked back at the paperwork.
Owen continued, apparently unaware that the subject should have ended.
“I heard she stayed in Westbridge for law school.”
Dorian’s eyes remained on the page.
“And?”
“Then she went abroad after graduation. Somewhere in Europe.”
Dorian knew that much already. Cassian had mentioned it the night before.
Owen drummed his fingers against the armrest.
“She was upset when you left.”
Dorian looked up.
“What makes you say that?”
“People talked. She seemed fine until graduation day. Then you disappeared, Cassian handed her that letter, and suddenly she stopped asking where you were going.”
Dorian’s expression hardened.
“She chose a good law school.”
“I didn’t say she ruined her life.”
“You implied she made decisions because of me.”
“I implied she cared.”
Dorian glanced toward the window again.
Traffic had begun to move.
The woman was gone.
“She was eighteen,” he said.
“So were you.”
Dorian reopened the file.
“Even if it was her, it changes nothing.”
Owen gave him a long look.
“You asked me twice whether I was sure.”
“I asked once.”
“You asked what I said, then asked how I knew.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Of course.”
The car rolled forward.
Dorian stared at a page he was no longer reading.
By the time Elara pushed open the café door, she was eleven minutes late and already preparing a defense.
“You said nine,” Daphne called from the corner table.
“It is barely after nine.”
“It is eleven minutes after nine,” Lydia corrected.
Tessa checked her watch. “Twelve now.”
Colette folded her arms. “We should have ordered without you.”
“You probably did.”
Elara crossed the room and stopped beside the table.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then Daphne stood so quickly her chair scraped against the floor.
“You really came back.”
Elara’s prepared joke disappeared.
Daphne wrapped both arms around her.
Lydia joined them next, followed by Tessa and Colette, until Elara was trapped in the middle of four people speaking over one another.
“You didn’t tell us the flight.”
“You look different.”
“You’re too thin.”
“She was always thin.”
“You cut your hair.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“It looks shorter.”
“That’s because she’s taller.”
“No one grows at twenty-five.”
Elara laughed against Daphne’s shoulder.
“I missed all of you too.”
They released her only to look at her more closely.
Colette tilted Elara’s chin toward the light.
“You look annoyingly good.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“I accepted it as one.”
Tessa pulled out the empty chair.
“Sit down before Daphne starts crying.”
“I’m not crying.”
“You’re blinking too much.”
“There’s dust.”
“In a café?”
Elara sat and reached for the coffee they had ordered for her.
The familiar rhythm of their voices settled something inside her that had been tense since the plane landed.
Seven years changed faces, careers, addresses, and habits.
It had not changed this.
Daphne pushed a cup toward her.
“We ordered your coffee.”
Elara took a sip.
“You remembered.”
“Of course we remembered.”
Lydia leaned forward. “How long are you staying?”
“For good, I think.”
Four faces brightened at once.
Elara raised a hand.
“Do not start screaming.”
No one screamed, but Colette clapped once and Daphne nearly knocked over the sugar bowl.
“What about Kingshaven?” Tessa asked.
“My program is finished. My contract ended. I wanted to come home.”
“And your parents?”
“Still abroad. They’ll be back in a few weeks.”
Lydia frowned. “So you’re staying alone in that house?”
“For now.”
“No,” Daphne said immediately.
Elara blinked. “No?”
“We have a room.”
“You have four rooms.”
“We have five.”
“One has been empty for years,” Tessa said.
Elara looked from one woman to another.
“You kept an empty room?”
Colette shrugged as if it meant nothing. “We knew you’d eventually stop pretending Europe was better than us.”
“You’re serious?”
Lydia smiled. “Move in.”
Elara lowered her gaze to the coffee.
The offer should not have affected her so deeply. It was a room. A practical arrangement. Nothing more.
Yet somewhere in Westbridge, people had built a life and left a place for her inside it.
“You may regret this,” she said.
“We regretted inviting Colette within two days,” Daphne replied. “We survived.”
Colette threw a napkin at her.
Elara laughed.
For the first time since landing, returning home felt less like opening an old wound and more like recovering something she had misplaced.
Then Daphne went quiet.
It was unusual enough that everyone noticed.
“What?” Elara asked.
Daphne looked at Lydia.
Lydia gave her a warning look.
Elara set down her cup. “You’re both terrible at hiding things.”
“It isn’t a secret,” Colette said.
“Then say it.”
Daphne drew a breath.
“Dorian is back.”
The café seemed to change around Elara.
Only the handle of her cup became too smooth beneath her fingers.
She released it before anyone could notice the pressure in her grip.
“When?” she asked.
“Yesterday, apparently.”
Lydia watched her carefully. “Are you all right?”
Elara almost laughed.
Seven years ago, she might have lied badly.
Now she knew how to shape an answer until it sounded almost true.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
- Writer
