Chapter 12 — LETTERS NEVER SENT
The rain returned that week, softer this time, like the sky was tired of crying but didn’t know how to stop.
In her small apartment above the florist shop, Cathy sat by the window, her sketchbook open but untouched.
She hadn’t drawn in days.
Every time she tried, her hands froze halfway through a line.
The city below her felt different without Adrian.
Elaris still shimmered with its silver lights and glass bridges, but to her, it felt muted, like someone had turned the volume down on the world.
Luna dropped by every evening, bringing tea, small jokes, and silent company.
Sometimes Cathy smiled.
Sometimes she just stared.
On one of those evenings, Luna found her writing a letter — long, neat lines of handwriting in soft blue ink.
“Who’s that for?” Luna asked gently.
Cathy paused, looked at the letter, and then turned it over before signing.
For no one.
Luna frowned. “You mean… for him, but not to send?”
Cathy nodded.
Luna sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re going to run out of paper at this rate.”
Cathy smiled faintly. Better to fill pages than stay empty.
Luna looked at her for a long moment, then whispered, “Maybe someday, he’ll deserve to read them.”
When Luna left, the apartment grew quiet again, and Cathy unfolded the letter once more.
Dear Adrian,
I wish silence could explain what words can’t. I wish you could hear how my heart sounds when I think of you — not angry, just aching. You said you were protecting me, but you forgot I was never afraid of truth. I only fear losing people without a reason. Maybe I was wrong to think silence made love easier. It doesn’t. It just makes it quieter when it breaks.
She stopped writing, her eyes stinging. Then she folded the letter and placed it with the others — a small box by her bedside now filled with words she’d never send.
Across the city, in a private office overlooking the Vale tower skyline, Adrian sat behind a desk he had sworn never to sit at again.
He had given in to his father’s demands, at least for now.
Not because he wanted to, but because he needed to protect Cathy from the kind of power Gabriel Vale wielded.
“You’re doing the right thing,” his father had said that morning.
“Responsibility first, emotions later. Love doesn’t build empires.”
Adrian hadn’t replied.
He just stared at the skyline, the same view he once shared with Cathy from the riverside.
That night, when the city grew quiet, he reached for a notebook and began to write.
Cathy,
I never lied about what I felt for you. Every time I looked at you, I found a reason to believe silence could be beautiful. You made me forget who I was supposed to be and reminded me who I actually am. I thought hiding my name would protect what we had, but now I see it only built walls between us. If I could, I’d tell you everything — not as a Vale, but as the man who loves you.
He closed the notebook and leaned back, exhausted.
The letter would never reach her.
But writing it made the ache a little lighter.
He stared at the pen she had returned to him.
He had placed it in a glass box on his desk — the only thing in the room that still felt alive.
Days passed, then weeks.
Elaris entered early autumn, and the evenings grew colder.
Cathy began spending more time in the flower shop again, helping her mother with arrangements.
She avoided the glass bridge. She avoided any street that reminded her of his smile.
But sometimes, she’d glance up at the skyline and imagine him there — maybe at his desk, maybe thinking of her.
One evening, she sketched again.
Not a person this time, but two silhouettes standing apart on a bridge under rain. Between them, a single flower grew through a crack in the concrete.
When Luna saw it, she whispered, “That’s heartbreak and hope at once.”
Cathy nodded. Yes.
Meanwhile, Adrian was losing himself in work.
Meetings, contracts, endless decisions — all distractions.
But even in crowded rooms, his mind wandered back to her.
Once, during a board meeting, someone mentioned the Duke Flower Shop for an upcoming event partnership.
His heart nearly stopped.
He almost said her name out loud.
Instead, he murmured, “Approve it,” and signed the paper with trembling fingers.
Later that night, he drove by the shop.
The lights were still on. He could see Cathy through the window, arranging white lilies with her mother.
He didn’t get out of the car.
He just sat there, watching from across the street, rain sliding down his windshield like the tears he refused to shed.
In her quiet way, she had taught him more about love than anyone ever had — that love wasn’t always loud, or perfect, or promised. Sometimes, it was just choosing to care even when everything else said not to.
At home, Cathy added another letter to her box.
Dear Adrian,
I hope you’re eating well. I hope you’re not losing yourself again. I still walk past the river sometimes, and it feels like you’re there, even when you’re not. Maybe that’s what love does — it leaves echoes. I don’t hate you. I just wish you’d trusted me to love you as you were.
She placed the letter beside the others and closed the box.
Then she turned off the light and whispered a silent prayer to the night — for peace, for understanding, for a love that might still find its way home someday.
And somewhere, miles away, Adrian stood at his balcony under the same moonlight.
He didn’t know why, but he felt calmer. As if someone, somewhere, was thinking of him kindly.
He closed his eyes and whispered her name, and though she could not hear it, the night carried it softly across the city —
a name spoken into silence, answered only by the quiet beating of two hearts still connected by invisible strings.
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