Elara

I had always imagined that the day Ethan died would feel different. Perhaps I had expected to feel triumphant or perhaps, somewhere deep inside me, I had imagined standing over him and finally telling him every word I had swallowed in my previous life.

I had imagined watching the arrogance drain from his face, watching him understand what he had done to me, and feeling the kind of satisfaction that revenge stories promised.

But sitting in that hospital corridor, listening to the hurried footsteps of doctors and the desperate prayers of the people who had once made my life a living hell, I felt nothing close to triumph except...