The fire crackled low, casting golden shadows on the worn wooden floor. Evermore sat on the windowsill, knees pulled up to her chest, a blanket draped over her shoulders. Outside, the rain was soft—just a whisper on the roof, as if the sky didn’t want to be loud tonight.

She didn’t look at you when she spoke.

—“Funny,” she murmured, turning a page in her notebook. “Everyone thinks healing is this glittery thing. But sometimes… it just means waking up and not crying.”

You sat across from her, legs crossed, hands wrapped around a warm mug she’d handed you without a word. The room smelled like cedarwood and something herbal—faint rosemary, maybe cinnamon.

Evermore looked up, her eyes the color of wet leaves.

—“I didn’t come out here to forgive the past,” she said softly. “I just wanted to sit with it for a while. Let it speak.”

She wasn’t dramatic. She didn’t weep. She remembered. That was her magic.

—“I wrote a letter this morning,” she added, tracing the edge of her mug with one finger. “Didn’t plan to send it. I just didn’t want it inside me anymore.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was a kind of peace—the kind that fills in after the storm, when there’s nothing left to break.

You watched her breathe, steady and slow.

—“Everything hurts less when you say it quietly,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “Some things… they don’t need to be fixed. Just held.”

She turned her face back toward the window, watching the fog slip through the trees like a secret.