The rain fell gently over the city, as if the heavens mourned a tragedy forgotten by all but one.

Elira sat at the window, her gaze distant and unfocused. Her reflection, pale and fragile, mirrored the emptiness that lived within her. She had lost something—no, someone—but no matter how hard she tried, the fragments refused to return. All she remembered was a car crash, a brilliant light, and waking up in a hospital bed with a hollow ache in her chest.

Her parents, once warm and affectionate, had become cold. The love that once filled their home had dried like withered flowers. No one ever spoke of what she had lost. No one told her about the boy who used to hold her hand and promise her forever.

Two months after her recovery, Elira was married off to Ares.

He was tall, cold, and distant—his eyes like steel and voice colder than winter. He never smiled at her, never spoke kindly, and never looked at her the way she longed for. She thought perhaps, in time, she could win his heart. She didn’t know the truth that poisoned their marriage from the beginning.

Ares had a lover—a woman he adored and planned to marry. But due to a sudden engagement orchestrated by his family, he was forced to wed Elira. And he thought Elira knew, that she had been part of the manipulation.

So he resented her. Blamed her.

“You knew I loved someone else,” he said one night, his voice sharp like glass. “You pretended to be innocent, but you stole everything from me.”

Elira, stunned, could only shake her head. “I didn’t know... I swear, I don’t remember anything.”

But Ares didn’t believe her.

Each day in the mansion was like walking through a battlefield. The maids whispered cruel things, shoved her aside, and treated her like an outsider. Bruises bloomed on her arms, but she said nothing. She still believed that maybe—just maybe—her kindness would melt the ice around her husband’s heart.

But that ice cut deeper than she imagined.

Then one evening, Ares returned home, his eyes red, reeking of whiskey. He threw a vase across the room, shattering it against the wall. Elira flinched.

“She cheated on me,” he growled. “All this time, she only wanted my money. I gave her everything… and she laughed behind my back.”

His fury, confusion, and pain turned to the only person left—Elira.

“You knew this would happen,” he spat, grabbing her wrist tightly. “You wanted this! You wanted to see me fall!”

“I didn’t!” she cried, tears spilling. “I didn’t even know—!”

In the struggle, she tripped, her head slamming into the corner of the wooden bedframe.

Blood.

Ares froze, the red staining his hands like guilt personified.

“Elira?” he whispered, panic replacing rage. “Elira—!”

He rushed her to the hospital, heart pounding with dread. For days, she lay motionless. The doctors said her body was shutting down. Something inside her was refusing to fight.

Her brother, Elias, returned from abroad after hearing the news. When he entered the hospital room, he felt a storm rise in his chest. His baby sister—so gentle and kind—looked like a lifeless doll, bruised and pale. He clenched his fists. “I should have been here… I should have protected you.”

He vowed to never leave her again.

Ares, meanwhile, sat outside her room day and night. Guilt gnawed at his soul. He remembered every time she brought him tea, every quiet smile she gave, every soft word. He remembered the way she waited for him with dinner, even when he never came. He remembered how she cried silently when the maids mocked her.

And most of all, he remembered how she never once fought back.

He realized too late—he had fallen for her.

But Elira didn’t wake. Not for days. Not for months. Not for years.

Three long years passed.

The world moved on, but Ares didn’t. He stayed by her side, whispering apologies, holding her hand, reading her stories he thought she might’ve liked. He helped Elias in arranging therapies and hiring specialists.

And then… one morning, her fingers twitched.

“Elira?” Elias called out, rushing to her side.

She blinked slowly. Her vision blurred. Her lips parted.

“The car… where’s Leo?” she asked faintly. “He was with me… Is he okay?”

Ares’s heart dropped.

Leo. That was his name.

The boyfriend she had forgotten.

Elias gently took her hand. “Elira… Leo didn’t make it. The accident… it took him.”

The room spun. Her heart cracked, the ache returning tenfold. Tears slipped down her cheeks, silent and endless.

“I loved him,” she whispered. “I remember now… we were going to run away together. He told me not to be afraid.”

Ares stood outside, unable to walk in. Her eyes—once filled with hope for him—now held grief for someone else. He had no right to grieve with her. He had destroyed her in ways she never deserved.

Elira mourned for days. The pain was raw, like an old wound ripped open again. She buried herself in memories that once were lost—Leo’s laughter, his promises, the music they danced to, the road they drove before it all turned black.

And slowly, as she healed, she noticed the man who never left her side.

Ares.

He brought her books. Flowers. Played her favorite songs. He never said much, but his eyes… they were no longer cold.

“Why?” she asked one evening.

“I don’t expect forgiveness,” he said quietly. “But I’ve wronged you in more ways than I can count. I see it now—how you loved with everything, even when unloved. I hated you for something you never did. And now… I hate myself.”

Elira looked at him, seeing not the monster from her nightmares, but the man who stayed while she slept through years. The man who changed.

She didn’t respond. Not yet. Her heart was still in pieces.

But something inside her whispered: maybe broken things could still be mended.

The breeze carried a hint of spring as the hospital discharged Elira after weeks of physical recovery. But emotional wounds, unlike bones or bruises, didn’t show on charts. They lived in shadows, in flinches, in the quiet moments when memories surged like waves and left her breathless.

Her brother Elias brought her home—not to Ares’s estate, but to a cozy house by the lakeside. “You’re not ready to go back there,” he had said gently. “And frankly, they don’t deserve you yet.”

Elira didn’t object. She was still remembering. Still piecing together who she was before the crash—before her mind was stolen by trauma and grief.

But even now, the ghost of her marriage lingered.

Ares came every afternoon, knocking at the door like a man who didn’t dare hope. He didn’t stay long. Sometimes he brought books, sometimes her favorite apple tea, once even a scarf she had hand-knitted for him years ago but forgotten. He never pushed, never asked to come inside.

He simply said, “I’m here, if you want to talk.”

And sometimes, Elira watched him from behind the curtain. His eyes—once filled with blame and bitterness—now carried a quiet sorrow. She didn’t know what to do with that. She wasn’t ready to forgive. But she also wasn’t ready to hate.

One night, after Ares left a potted blue hyacinth by the porch—her favorite—Elias sat beside her. “He’s changed,” he said after a while. “Not because he wants to be forgiven. But because he regrets who he was. That’s rare.”

Elira said nothing for a long time. Then, softly, “I remember the pain, Elias. The loneliness. The maids whispered about me like I was nothing. I thought maybe if I smiled enough, tried hard enough, he would see me.”

Elias’s jaw clenched. “If I had known, I’d have taken you away sooner.”

“I don’t blame you,” she murmured. “I didn’t even know what I had forgotten.”

The next day, she returned to the estate.

Not to move in—but to confront the shadows that still haunted her.

She stepped into the grand mansion, head held high, though her knees trembled. The air felt heavy, tainted with old ghosts and whispered cruelty.

The maids paused as they saw her.

“That’s her,” one whispered. “I thought she’d never wake up…”

“She looks… different.”

“Maybe the accident fixed her memory.”

Elira walked past them, until she reached the garden where she once sat every evening, waiting for a husband who never came.

She turned when she heard footsteps.

It was Ares.

He froze as he saw her, a flicker of surprise softening into something deeper. “Elira…”

“I came to see them,” she said calmly. “The ones who used to call me names when they thought I couldn’t hear. The ones who served me cold food and told me I was worthless.”

Ares stiffened. “They… they’re no longer here. After you fell into a coma, I let them go. I should have done it earlier. I was blind.”

She nodded slowly. Her heart beat faster—not from fear, but power. She was no longer the girl who waited. She was becoming the woman who would no longer be broken.

“I don’t want pity,” she said. “I don’t want apologies in flowers or books. I want to know why.”

Ares took a shaky breath. “Because I thought you destroyed the one chance I had at love. I thought you knew I was in love with someone else, and that you were complicit in taking that away.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“No,” he said. “You weren’t. I see that now. I was a coward. I punished you because it was easier than accepting I’d been wrong about everyone… especially myself.”

There was silence between them, thick and bitter.

Then Elira looked at him and said quietly, “I remembered Leo.”

Ares looked down.

“He was my first love. We were in that car together. We were running away.” Her voice trembled. “He shielded me in the crash. He died saving me.”

“I know,” Ares whispered. “I… I visited the site once. After you fell into a coma. Your brother told me everything. And I hated myself even more.”

Elira’s eyes shimmered with tears. “When I woke up… all I wanted was to find him. But he was gone. And the man I was married to… he wasn’t someone I could lean on. Not then.”

Ares stepped closer but didn’t touch her. “I’ve learned to live with the man I was. But I want to become someone else. Not for redemption. Not for forgiveness. But because loving you made me see how much damage I did.”

“You love me?” she asked, startled.

“I do,” he said simply. “It crept in during the nights I sat beside you in the hospital. When I realized your smile had once been only for me. When I realized you never once fought back—not because you were weak, but because you were stronger than I ever was.”

Elira’s heart ached.

She remembered the pain. The betrayal. But she also remembered the man who changed her bandages when she was unconscious. The one who talked to her every night, even when she couldn’t reply.

She didn’t answer him that day.

But a week later, she returned to the estate—not as a stranger, not as a wife—but as herself.

She stood in the same garden, beside the same bench.

Ares joined her quietly.

“I’m not ready,” she said softly.

“I’ll wait,” he replied.

She looked at him, truly looked—and saw not the cold, bitter man of her past, but the man who had finally opened his heart.

“I think,” she said, voice trembling, “I want to try again. Not as the girl who lost her love, or the wife who was forgotten. But as the woman who deserves to be chosen.”

Ares reached for her hand. This time, she didn’t pull away.

The rain came softly that morning, like heaven whispering down a final lullaby.

Elira stood at the cemetery gates, her fingers clutching a bouquet of pale white lilies. Beside her, Ares held an umbrella, his other hand never straying far from hers—offering silent support. They hadn’t spoken much on the ride here. Some wounds required silence to breathe.

Elira’s steps slowed as she approached the headstone, her breath catching in her throat. Leo Ardent Vale. The name still echoed like a prayer in her chest.

Beneath his name were the words: "The brightest flames burn the fastest."

She knelt, brushing her fingers gently over the damp stone. “Hey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

The memories had returned slowly—like fragments of a shattered mirror. Leo’s smile. The sound of his laughter. The day they’d planned to leave everything behind and start fresh. He’d held her hand on the highway, told her love was worth running for.

And then he was gone.

She couldn’t stop the tears. Not anymore. She didn’t want to.

Behind her, Ares stayed respectfully quiet.

But they weren’t alone.

From the edge of the trees came the soft crunch of footsteps. Elira turned, her heart twisting.

Leo’s parents.

They hadn’t aged much, but grief had carved its story into their features—deep lines around their eyes, shoulders heavier than time should allow.

“Elira,” Mrs. Vale said softly. “You came.”

Elira stood, hands shaking. “I’m sorry. I should have come earlier. I—I forgot everything. The accident, Leo… us.”

Mr. Vale stepped forward, his gaze unreadable. “We were angry, Elira. Not at you. At fate. At life. At the kind of world where two good kids couldn’t even be happy for one more day.”

Elira lowered her gaze, guilt clawing at her throat. “He died protecting me. I should have—”

“Don’t,” Mrs. Vale interrupted gently. “Don’t carry that. Leo wouldn’t want that"

Her voice trembled as she reached out, taking Elira’s hands. “You were his everything. He made that clear every time he came home with that spark in his eyes. Even the night before the accident, he told us he was going to marry you someday.”

Elira wept openly now. Her heart felt too full, too broken. “I loved him. I still do.”

They stood together in the rain, mourning the boy who’d been their world.

And then something impossible happened.

The air shifted.

The rain grew still.

And Elira felt it before she saw it—a warmth wrapping around her like sunlight. She turned slowly… and there he was.

Leo.

Not the Leo from the accident, but the one from her memories. Tall, smiling, dressed in his old blue jacket, standing beneath the willow tree with the faintest golden light around him.

Elira gasped.

The others froze, sensing something but seeing nothing.

Leo stepped forward, his eyes gentle. “El,” his voice echoed like wind in the leaves. “You have to let go.”

She shook her head, trembling. “I don’t want to forget you again.”

“You won’t. I’ll always be here.” He touched his chest. “In here. But you can’t stay trapped in the past, love. You’ve got a life waiting.”

Elira’s eyes darted to Ares, who stood back with wide eyes—his lips parted as though he could feel the spirit too.

“He changed,” she whispered. “He hurt me before. But he’s different now.”

Leo smiled sadly. “He was broken. So were you. Sometimes two broken people can learn to heal together.”

A soft wind rustled the lilies, and Leo’s image began to fade.

“Don’t blame her,” he said louder now, looking at his parents. “Don’t hold her pain against her. I chose to protect her. And I would do it again.”

Tears fell freely down Elira’s face. “I miss you, Leo.”

“I know,” he said gently. “But it’s time to live again, Elira. You deserve to be loved… not in memory, but in life.”

With a final smile, he vanished.

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy—it was peaceful.

Mr. Vale exhaled deeply, as if releasing something he'd carried for years. Mrs. Vale stepped forward and hugged Elira tightly. “He always did have a way of making things right.”

They stayed by the grave for a while longer. The clouds parted slowly, sunlight breaking through like a promise.

That night, back at the lakeside home, Elira sat on the porch, her hair still damp from the rain. Ares sat beside her, unusually quiet.

“I saw him too,” he finally said.

She turned to him.

“I saw Leo,” he repeated. “I… I didn’t think I’d deserve to, but… he looked at me like he forgave me.”

Elira nodded. “He did.”

“I was jealous of him for so long,” Ares admitted. “Because you loved him with your whole heart. I think I hated myself for never being able to love someone like that.”

She reached out, brushing her fingers over his hand. “You can.”

Ares looked at her, his eyes rimmed with unshed tears. “Do you think... I could ever be someone you love again?”

Elira didn’t answer with words. She leaned her head against his shoulder and let the silence speak.

She had mourned Leo.

She had found closure.

And now, just maybe… she was ready to live again.