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“She does. She was obsessed with puzzles when she was younger. Didn’t matter if she had no idea how they went together. She would rather play with a Rubik’s Cube or number blocks over a doll or cuddly toy.
“One day, after preschool, she mentioned the teacher had told her off for saying that the colour pink was called six. She’d been a little stubborn, and the teacher had been a little demeaning, and in the end, Ayla had burst into tears because to her pink was six, orange was three, tens were grey, and the rainbow held numbers in every spectrum.
“I’d been tempted to call Cem that night and tell him that the Kara family trait was alive and well, but I’d never called him outside the anniversary of him killing Aslan before, and I didn’t want to slip onto an even slipperier slope of madness. Instead, I threw myself into researching synesthesia. I learned how intelligent my child was. How much she’d inherited from Aslan. How much she could contribute to the world. And just how special she was...just like Cem had said she would be.”
I sucked in a breath. The fire that’d burned my life down was slowly dying and leaving nothing but ash in its wake. Ash that I’d risen from. “That night, I walked on my silent, empty beach and finally heard a little whisper deep inside me that it was time.
“It was time to let go.
“It was okay to let go. To admit that he was gone. To say he was dead. For so long, I couldn’t even think those words. Couldn’t visualise him as a corpse. Couldn’t bear to imagine that he’d been nothing more than ether for five long years.
“I walked beneath the moon for hours, splashing through the sea, and I slowly, painfully, unwillingly said...okay.
“Okay, he’s gone.
“Okay, I’m alone.
“Okay, I’ll never see him again because as special as Aslan had been, he couldn’t stay. Not after he’d given me his equally special daughter. They were too unique, too wonderful, too bright and blazing like a shooting star to stay on earth for long.
“I would never be able to live the life I wanted with him by my side.
“I would never know blistering happiness.
“I would never fall asleep with someone beside me.
“I would never love another or be touched by another, and...that was okay too.
“I was...okay with saying goodbye. It’d taken five long years to reach that level of acceptance. It was the greatest struggle of my life, a constant battle to stay in reality and not slip deeper into insanity. But...in the dark on that beach, I finally took that first unwilling step out of grief, shedding denial and slipping into anger, bargaining, depression, guilt, hope, and acceptance.
“I doubted I’d ever truly accept, but I accepted that fact. I was okay with always living a half-life, just as long as I did the best I could while I lived it. I stopped feeling guilty for laughing with Ayla and I gave myself permission to find pockets of happiness here and there.
“I hoped by finally letting go, I would’ve found closure. Instead...it brought the worst pain I’d ever endured. Accepting his death felt as if it’d just happened all over again.
“I broke. I shattered. I kneeled in the shallow sea and sobbed beneath the clouded moon. I slipped into that screaming abyss and lost every piece of me.
“I felt all the pain, all the loss. I was torn open, split wide, and ever so empty. So, so empty because I finally accepted that my heart flutters were just my relentless pumping organ trying to remember how to beat without him. It wasn’t some link between him and me. Not some peculiar, mystifying connection between soulmates. It was just me. Just me and my broken body fighting to function without his.”
“Oh, Nerida.” Margot came to my side and kneeled at my feet. She took my hand in hers, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry for your loss.”
I blinked and noticed my own sodden cheeks. I studied this sweet, young woman who wore her tender, untouched heart on her sleeve, and the first twinges of a grateful smile tugged my lips.
I curled my fingers around hers.
I squeezed her hard. “It’s okay. Don’t cry for me. Like I told you before I recounted Ethan’s rape, see me as I am now: as an old woman who has loved. A successful visionary who turned the impossible into possible.”
“Oh, I do. I definitely do. I just...” She sniffed and shrugged. “I can’t help wishing your story had a happy ever after in romance as well as in business.”
I leaned forward. My pulse tripping quicker. “Who said it doesn’t?”
She scowled. “Well...you did.” She reared back, her gaze diving into mine. “You mean you met someone else, after all? You remarried?”
