Chapter 3: Unspoken

Chapter 3: Aria

Adrian walks me to my door, his shoulder brushing gently against mine as we slow to a stop. The night air is still laced with the perfume of gardenias from the ball, and there's a kind of lull in the silence between us.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks softly, turning to face me. “It’s been six years. Seeing him again… that must’ve been jarring.”

I offer him a smile. “I’m okay, Adrian… really. A bit shaken, sure. But it’s been six years. I’m… unaffected.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Unbothered Aria, huh?”

I shrug lightly. “Unbothered. Evolved. Transcended,” I add with a dry chuckle.

Adrian narrows his eyes at me, unconvinced. “If you’re so transcendent, then why not come out to Xavier’s club with us tonight? You know he likes you. Free drinks, no pretences. Loud music, low lighting, and terrible decisions. What more could a girl want?”

I groan, laughing as I lean against my doorframe. “Oh come on. I just want to be home, wash my face, FaceTime my mom, and let the Michelin star news properly sink in. We have the whole week to celebrate.”

He pouts dramatically. “So I really can’t convince you otherwise? Not even with the promise of drunk karaoke and overpriced cocktails?”

“Not even,” I grin. “Psshtt… go. Have fun. It’s not like you’re not itching to be alone with Blackwood.”

He gasps, hand flying to his chest in mock offense. “Scandalous! But wait… you think he likes me?”

I raise an eyebrow and smirk. “Adrian. Jake kept coming up to you the entire night. He ‘accidentally’ bumped into you three times and side –eyed me every time I talked to you. That man practically drools over you.”

Adrian rolls his eyes. “It’s because of the stocks.”

“No one likes stocks that much,” I deadpan. “He likes you.”

His smirk starts to grow into a grin, and I can see. The flicker of hope he doesn’t dare name. The lightness in his eyes that wasn’t there earlier in the evening.

“Go,” I nudge him gently. “Let me rest before I change my mind and agree to third-wheel your not-a-date.”

He pulls me into a warm hug. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You better.”

I wait until I hear his footsteps fade down the stairs before turning the key in my lock. The moment I step inside my house, the door clicks shut behind me and with it, the dam I’ve been holding back all night begins to crack.

I kick off my heels, the sound of them thudding against the wooden floor unusually loud in the quiet of my living room. I shrug out of my emerald dress, letting the silk slide off my shoulders and pool at my feet like fallen leaves. The chill in the air makes me shiver, but it’s not the cold that unsettles me. It’s everything else.

I close the curtains slowly, casting the room in a soft, amber glow from the streetlights outside. My body moves on autopilot—switching off the lights, setting my phone on silent, folding my dress over the back of a chair. Normal things. Mundane things. All in an effort to drown out the storm behind my ribs.

But it doesn’t work.

Not tonight.

I crawl under the covers, cocooning myself in the comfort of Egyptian cotton sheets and faux stability. The second my head hits the pillow, the tears come—hot, silent, uninvited.

And I let them.

I cry for the girl I used to be. The one who believed love was enough. The one who dreamed of brownstone homes and lazy Sunday mornings with a boy who smelled like mint and wore his heart on his sleeve.

I cry for the boy I thought I had forgotten. For Damien von Adler—the boy who made promises with his lips and broke them with his silence. The boy who, with one look tonight, brought back a version of myself I thought I had buried six feet under.

Six years. Six long years.

And still, he had the power to shatter my carefully constructed peace with nothing more than his voice.

It wasn’t just seeing him. It was the way his eyes widened when he saw me. The way he froze, like time had rewound and we were back on the Blackwood quad again, young and invincible.

It was the small boy by his side, clinging to his hand. A child. His child.

I cried for the part of me that imagined that child could’ve been ours, once.

For the part of me that, even now, aches to know if he’s truly happy. If Vivienne makes him laugh. If he ever thinks about me when the house is quiet and the world is asleep.

I cry because I haven’t really moved on—not the way I tell people I have. Not the way I pretend to have. Because even as I built my dream from scratch, even as I earned that Michelin star, even as I surrounded myself with love and light and laughter…

Some small, traitorous piece of me was still waiting.

Still wondering.

Still hoping.

And that ends tonight.

I sit up, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my robe, my chest aching like someone punched through my ribcage. “No more,” I whisper into the dark.

I make a quiet, solemn vow to myself. I won’t give him space in my mind. I won’t let his memory live rent-free in the home I built with my own two hands.

He’s moved on. A family. A life. A wife.

And now it’s my turn.

I lie back down, pressing the back of my hand to my damp cheeks. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and call my mom. Tomorrow I’ll FaceTime Elena and plan the wildest celebration we’ve had since college. Tomorrow I’ll reply to the dozen congratulatory messages in my inbox.

Tomorrow, I’ll live again.

But tonight… I’ll mourn quietly.

For the love I lost.

And for the strength I’m just now beginning to reclaim.