CHAPTER FIVE: Healing Threads
658 Words
The dawn in Navesh crept in softly, casting long golden stripes across Avelon’s bedroom wall. She stirred beneath the covers, waking to the sound of birds outside the window and the faint, rhythmic clink of dishes in the kitchen. The world was waking up slowly, and for the first time in weeks, so was her heart.
She sat up, stretching, and stared at the soft light that touched everything with a gentle warmth. It wasn’t that everything was better — Kristen’s illness still loomed, her past with Damian still complicated — but something had shifted. Maybe it was Emma’s quiet, unwavering presence. Maybe it was the long walk she had taken the evening before, letting her feet wander while her thoughts settled.
Emma stood in the kitchen, humming an old tune under her breath, her white nurse uniform slightly wrinkled from the night shift. She poured tea into two mismatched mugs and slid one across the table as Avelon walked in.
“I figured you could use this,” she said, her eyes kind.
Avelon took the tea gratefully. “I needed something grounding. This helps.”
Emma gave a half-smile. “So does talking.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, sipping tea. Then, Avelon spoke, her voice tentative. “I’m scared she’s going to go, and I still haven’t said everything. What if I miss the moment?”
“You’re not going to miss anything,” Emma said. “You’ve been there. She sees you. She feels it. That’s enough.”
Avelon swallowed hard. “I wish I had your peace.”
Emma looked at her, tilting her head slightly. “I don’t have peace. I just trust time to do what it does — teach us, even when it hurts.”
Avelon thought about that later when she visited Kristen. Her mother sat by the window, wrapped in a shawl, the light from outside touching her face with something almost ethereal.
“You always were a morning girl,” Kristen said, her voice soft.
“I learned it from you,” Avelon replied, trying to smile through the tightness in her throat.
They talked for a while — not about death, or sickness, but about birthdays and her first heartbreak, and how Kristen had once nearly named her Violet instead of Avelon. There was something healing in the ordinariness of it all. A slow unwinding of the tight rope of grief around her heart.
That evening, she met Damian by the riverwalk. He was waiting by the bench they used to sit on in college — his shoulders tense, his hands shoved in his coat pockets. He looked up as she approached, uncertainty clouding his features.
“I didn’t know if you’d come,” he said.
“I almost didn’t,” Avelon replied. “But I realized I didn’t want to avoid this anymore.”
They sat together on the bench, the breeze cool against their cheeks. The trees rustled overhead, and the soft murmur of the river ran like a whisper between them.
“I was scared back then,” Damian said. “Of what it would mean to really stay. I didn’t think I could be enough for you.”
“And now?” she asked, her voice low.
“I still don’t know if I am. But I want to try.”
There was silence. But this time, it wasn’t heavy. It was reflective — filled with everything unspoken finally finding space.
She turned to him. “Then we’ll try. Together.”
For the first time in a long while, Avelon felt her heart relax. Healing didn’t come in thunderclaps or grand gestures. It came in quiet mornings, in whispered apologies, in second chances. It came in choosing to open the door again, even after it had been slammed shut.
And in that quiet, she took Damian’s hand — not because everything was perfect, but because it was real.
- Writer
