Aria's POV
The city did not care that my heart was broken.
Cars still rushed past in angry rivers of metal. People still laughed into their phones. Vendors still shouted prices. Life continued, loud and careless, while I stood at the bus terminal with one small suitcase and a chest that felt too hollow to breathe properly.
I kept telling myself not to look back.
The mansion was miles away.
Sebastian was miles away.
But somehow, everything inside me was still standing in that hallway… listening to a door close.
I hugged my arms around myself as the bus arrived with a loud hiss.
"This is good," I whispered.
"This is right."
No matter how much it hurts.
I rented a tiny room above a tailor's shop in a crowded part of the city.
It smelled like fabric dust and old soap. The ceiling fan squeaked when it turned. The mattress was thin. The window faced a brick wall.
But it was mine.
The first night, I lay awake listening to strangers argue in the street below, to motorcycles roaring past, to music playing from somewhere far away.
In the mansion, silence had been heavy and expensive.
Here, noise wrapped around me like proof that the world was still moving.
Still alive.
Still possible.
I pressed my hand against my chest.
"Start again, Aria," I whispered.
Finding work was harder than I expected. No one cared that I once worked for one of the richest men in the country. No one cared that I knew how to serve formal dinners or polish silver or brew perfect coffee.
They cared about rent.
Experience, speed,strength.
I walked for hours each day, asking in small restaurants, cafés, grocery stores, and laundries.
Most said no.
Some didn't even look at me.
By the fourth day, my feet were blistered and my savings were shrinking fast. I sat on a curb that evening, staring at my empty hands.
"I can't go back," I told myself.
"I won't."
So I stood up again.
On the sixth day, a small café owner finally said yes. It was nothing like the luxury kitchen I once worked in. The counter was chipped. The chairs didn't match. The coffee machine was old and noisy but the smell of coffee wrapped around me like familiarity.
"You start tomorrow," the woman said.
"Pay is small."
"I don't mind," I replied quickly.
And I meant it.
Work became my anchor.
I woke up early, tied my hair back, wore the same two dresses on rotation, and learned every corner of that café.
I cleaned tables, washed dishes, served customers with tired smiles, burned my fingers, spilled drinks and apologized a hundred times a day.
At night, I returned to my tiny room, counted my money, ate noodles, and slept like a stone.
I did not allow myself to think.
Not about his voice, not about his eyes, not about the way he had said my name as if it mattered, but memories are stubborn things.
They slip through cracks, they wait in quiet moments.
Sometimes, when I poured coffee, my hands trembled.
Sometimes, when a customer said "thank you," my chest tightened painfully.
Sometimes, I dreamed of silver hair and kind eyes.
Of Madam Sinclair.
Of her warm hands holding mine.
Of her words.
"You look like someone who cries quietly."
I did not cry anymore.
I was too tired.
Two weeks passed.
Then three.
Then a month.
My body grew stronger.
My voice grew steadier.
My fear slowly changed shape.
It became something quieter, something heavier, something that lived deep inside my ribs.
One evening, after closing the café, I walked home under orange streetlights.
Rain had just fallen. The road shimmered like broken glass.
I stopped walking suddenly.
For one terrifying second, I thought I saw him.
A tall man across the street.
Dark hair, straight posture. My heart leapt into my throat.
But it wasn't him.
Just a stranger.
I laughed weakly at myself.
"You're free," I whispered.
"So why does it still hurt?"
Money was still tight. I began sewing at night to earn extra cash, helping the tailor downstairs fix hems and buttons. My fingers learned to move quickly. My mind learned to be quiet.
I liked the quiet.
It was safer than I had hoped.
One afternoon, a woman entered the café wearing sunglasses and expensive perfume.
The entire room seemed to shrink around her.
My hands froze on the tray. I recognized that elegance. That sharpness. That controlled danger. Not her but her world.
Fear slid into my bones.
She didn't look at me twice. Ordered coffee.
Paid and left.
Still, my chest hurt for hours afterward.
That night, I locked my door twice.
Then three times.
Weeks became months.
And slowly, something new happened.
I laughed, not politely, not weakly but truly.
When a child spilled juice and blamed his invisible "dragon."
When an old man tipped me with candy instead of money.
When my neighbor sang terribly in the shower.
My laughter surprised me. It sounded unfamiliar but real.
I bought a small plant for my window. It was dying when I bought it.
So was I, a little. We healed together.
Sometimes, I wondered if Sebastian hated me.
Sometimes, I wondered if he had forgotten me already.
Sometimes, I hoped he had.
And sometimes, I hoped he hadn't. I hated myself for that.
One night, rain poured so hard the streets flooded. The power went out in my building.
I sat on my bed, hugging my knees, surrounded by darkness.
My phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
I stared at it for a long time.
My heart knew before my mind did.
I didn't answer.
The phone stopped vibrating.
A minute later, a message arrived.
'I hope you're safe.'
No name.
But I knew.
My chest shattered silently.
I pressed the phone to my forehead.
"I'm alive," I whispered.
"I'm surviving."
"But I can't come back."
I deleted the message.
Then cried for the first time since leaving.
Quietly, like always.
Life did not become easier but it became mine and that was enough to keep going. I did
not know what waited ahead.
I only knew this:
I was no longer invisible.
I was no longer owned by fear.
I was no longer standing in someone else's shadow.
I was walking.
Slowly.
Painfully.
But forward.