Lahat ng Kabanata ng Shattered Vows : Kabanata 111 - Kabanata 120

ElenaThere’s a kind of fury that doesn’t scream or shatter. It burns cold. Controlled. Methodical. And when it finally spreads, it does so with precision—consuming everything in its path.That was the fury I felt as I stood in front of the vandalized glass doors of my clinic, watching as the cleaning crew scraped off the hateful slurs someone—Daniel—had spray-painted.The rose-tinted glass façade that had once signaled calm and safety for my patients was now scarred with words meant to humiliate and degrade. It was his way of marking me again. Not with hands, but with threats. With shame. With public spectacle.But he didn’t realize something vital.I wasn’t ashamed.I was enraged.And rage is a far more dangerous thing.Not just for those who ignite it—but for everyone it touches.I spent the next week rebuilding. Not just the clinic, but my boundaries, my space, my silence. I changed the security codes. I changed the locks. I changed the way I

ElenaIf you had asked me a year ago what healing looked like, I might’ve said something like “forgiveness” or “moving on.” I might’ve pointed to soft music, yoga retreats, green smoothies—whatever the wellness blogs fed us in the aftermath of emotional war.But real healing?It was grittier. Quieter. More defiant.Real healing was in the nights I didn’t cry myself to sleep but lay awake in silence, thinking instead of replaying. It was in signing the lease to my own new house, one I chose not for its status, but for the sunlight that streamed through its imperfect windows.It was in raising my son without apologizing for the past.It was in making peace with who I had become.The new house sat at the edge of the community, overlooking the woods and away from the polished sidewalks and country club smiles. It was smaller, older, and unapologetically mine. No one else’s fingerprints were on the walls. No memories embedded in the tiles. Just fresh paint. A

ElenaI had faced monsters before.Daniel with his charm-wrapped lies. Sophie with her cunning innocence. Even my so-called friends, who nodded kindly to my face while hiding knives behind their backs.But Clara was different.Clara was the monster I might have become.And I couldn’t stop staring at her reflection.She began texting between sessions.At first, innocuous updates. Questions about therapy. Requests for rescheduling. Apologies.But they slowly bled into more.“I read your article from 2017 again. It’s so raw. So real. I felt like I was living inside your pain.”“Do you ever feel like they still win, even after they’re gone?”“Sometimes, I imagine you and I… sitting across from each other, not as doctor and patient, but as survivors. Equals.”I stopped responding.Still, the texts kept coming.Lucas noticed first.He had been over for dinner—grilled salmon, wine, a night like any other. Until he saw my phone buz

ElenaThe apartment Lucas gave me was nothing like my home.It was sterile, minimalist—white walls, steel countertops, no photographs. A fortress disguised as a condo. It smelled of leather and cologne, and even though I kept the windows cracked, the air felt tight, heavy with things unsaid.Noah was due back in three days.Three days to figure out how to untangle a shadow that had already seeped under my skin.I sat on the edge of the guest bed, rereading Clara’s last note.You think locks will keep me out, Elena? I’m already inside you.And she wasn’t wrong. She was inside me—wrapped around my thoughts, whispering doubts and twisted reflections in my ear. I could feel her hands in my drawers, her breath on my mirrors. The intimacy of it was more violating than anything physical. Clara didn’t just want to destroy me. She wanted to be me.Lucas paced in the other room. He hadn’t left since I called him that night. He slept on the couch, fully dressed,

ElenaThe strangest part about starting over is the silence.Not the absence of noise—but the absence of drama. No footsteps pacing behind me. No sudden phone calls that freeze the blood in my veins. No second-guessing every word, every look, every shift in tone.Just quiet.It was unnerving at first. Like walking into a house after a robbery—everything intact, but you still feel like something is missing.But slowly, I began to understand it.This was the sound of peace.I spent the first few days after Noah’s return reacquainting myself with him.It felt like getting to know a person I loved in theory, but hadn’t had time to truly sit with. He’d changed in small, subtle ways. He had new favorite foods. He said things like “That’s mid” and “real talk,” and I had to look up half of what he meant. He was quieter, more observant. And yet, he seemed older in the way he moved through the world.Like someone who’d seen too much too soon.Just like