Chapter Two: Scars Beneath the Surface

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.

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