Chapter 4

I crouched, my knees hitting the hardwood, and gathered the fractured halves of the moonstone. A jagged edge sliced into the pad of my index finger. Droplets of crimson welled up.

On my eighteenth birthday, Gran Sera had fastened this exact chain around my neck. Her hands had been so frail then, her knuckles swollen with arthritis as she fumbled with the clasp.

"You're always making yourself small to accommodate everyone else, my sweet girl," she had whispered, resting her warm hands on my shoulders. "When I'm no longer here, I need you to hold onto the things you love. Don't let them make you feel like you deserve less."

I remembered hugging her, burying my face in her cardigan, insisting that as long as I had her, I would never feel unloved.

But Gran was gone. And in this house, there was no one left who viewed me as a girl who bled, who hurt, who needed to be chosen. The very last fraction of love I possessed had been casually handed over to Liora, only to be shattered right in front of my eyes.

"Elowen, I didn't mean to!" Liora wailed.

Mara immediately pulled Liora into her chest, shielding her. "Don't cry, it's not your fault."

My mother shot me a venomous glare over Liora's trembling shoulders. "If you hadn't charged at her like a lunatic, she wouldn't have panicked!"

I hadn't even touched Liora.

Joren sighed, rubbing his temples in annoyance. "Just take it to a jeweler, El. It's not like it's a priceless artifact."

Beside them, Kael pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket, gently dabbing the dampness from Liora's cheeks.

Nobody noticed the blood dripping from my hand onto the floorboards. Or perhaps they did. It was just that my bleeding was nothing compared to the tragedy of Liora's tears.

I tightened my fist around the broken stone, the sharp edges biting deeper into my skin. For my entire life, whenever I was misunderstood, I fought tooth and nail to explain myself. I foolishly believed that if I just laid out the facts clearly enough, just once, they would finally see my side.

In this moment, however, the exhaustion was absolute. I had no fight left in me.

Without a word, I slipped the bloodied pieces into my pocket, turned my back on them, and walked out.

"Walk out that door and you can forget about coming back!" Mara screamed after me. "You're an adult throwing a pathetic tantrum over a piece of rock! With a toxic attitude like that, who is ever going to tolerate you?"

I didn't turn around. She didn't realize I had already packed my bags.

Back at the cramped downtown hostel, I gathered my remaining clothes. My scheduled arrival at the North-Aether Institute was in two days.

At 1:00 AM, my phone illuminated the dark dorm room. A text from Kael.

[Liora has been crying all night. Are you happy now?]

I stared at the glowing screen for a long time. My thumb instinctively hovered over the keyboard. I started typing out a defense, desperate to make him understand what that necklace meant, why it hurt so much.

Then, my thumb shifted to the backspace key. Holding it down, I deleted every single word.

It wouldn't matter. He didn't care why I left. Liora's crocodile tears warranted an all-night vigil from a fiercely protective audience. My profound grief only earned me the title of 'toxic'.

I tapped Kael's contact and hit Block. I did the same for Mara. For Toren. For Joren. I erased my presence from their digital lives entirely, grabbed my battered suitcase, and headed for the train station.

Getting through the massive transit terminal was a struggle. As I approached the security checkpoint, my suitcase's busted wheel finally gave out, jamming hard against the edge of a sweeping marble staircase.

"Here, let me give you a hand, sweetheart," a warm voice offered. An older woman grasped the side handle, helping me haul it up the steps. She gave me a sympathetic smile. "Traveling all by yourself? Didn't any of your family come to see you off?"

I looked at her, a profound, airy sense of relief washing over my chest. I offered a genuine smile.

"No," I replied. "They have someone far more important to take care of."

An hour later, the train pulled away from the platform, the city skyline blurring into the distance. Sitting by the window, I opened my palm, looking at the two fractured halves of Gran Sera's moonstone.

Here, completely surrounded by strangers, the tears finally fell.

I wasn't crying because I was leaving them behind. I was mourning the naïve little girl I used to be—the girl who spent her entire life believing that if she was just a little more accommodating, a little more agreeable, someday, someone would turn around and love her.

Before I shut my phone down for the long journey, a few of their final messages from secondary apps filtered through. They were still using my "sensible nature" to guilt-trip me, demanding I come home and apologize to Liora for causing a scene.

They had no idea.

The sensible, invisible Elowen who spent twenty-two years waiting for their validation was gone. And she wasn't coming back.