A Love Restored

Chapter 85

Felix held his phone aloft, a small conductor summoning an orchestra. Chopin’s moonlight sonata poured into the room, weaving a tapestry of silver notes around us.

He took a bite of the cake, his eyes closing as the flavors swirled on his tongue. “This is incredible,” he breathed, his voice laced with a hint of awe. “I forgot how good it was.”

I smiled, feeling a flutter in my chest. “I’m really glad you like it. I worked really hard.”

“It shows.”

The music ebbed and flowed, its gentle melody a counterpoint to the symphony of unspoken thoughts playing between us. My fingers brushed his, a tiny spark leaping across the gap. He didn’t pull away, his hand resting near mine as if seeking solace in the quiet touch.

“When did you get into classical music?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, afraid to shatter the fragile peace the music had woven.

“It’s new, actually,” he admitted, a sheepish smile playing on his lips. “Just something I stumbled upon lately. IL… calms me, you know? Helps me sort through the noise,”

I nodded, understanding washing over me.

to lighter ground. More than that, I wanted to know how his day had been.

“What did you eat for dinner?” I asked, trying to shift the conversation back to

“Same old,” he replied with a wry chuckle. “A salad,”

The music spun around us, its crescendo mirroring the unspoken questions hanging in the air. I hesitated, then decided to ask the one that truly worried me.

“Felix,” I started, my voice barely a tremor, “So…guess you had a wild night, huh? You look…really tired.”

He chuckled dryly. “I was just working.”

My eyes widened, “So you just, worked?”

He met my gaze, his eyes a deep well of emotions I couldn’t quite decipher. “Honestly? Yeah, mostly.”

Silence descended again, heavier this time, pressing down on us like a thick fog. He reached out, his thumb gently brushing the back of my hand.

“It wasn’t a bad day, you know,” he said, his voice soft. “Just… long. And then this…” he gestured to the cake, a hint of a smile gracing his lips. This made it all worth it.”

I searched his eyes, trying to find the truth between the lines.

The music swelled, a soaring melody filling the room with a bittersweet longing.

We sat in silence, the music our only words, our hands intertwined.

The air shimmered with the last whispers of Chopin’s melody, the silence that followed heavy with unspoken truths. I took a deep breath, the taste of mangoes and unspoken words clinging to my tongue.

“Linda told me you don’t celebrate birthdays anymore,” I ventured, my voice a tentative thread weaving through the stillness.

His eyes, clouded with shadows, flickered to mine. He held my gaze for a moment, the moonlight etching the lines of worry on his face. “Yeah,” he mumbled, the word rough against the porcelain silence. “Stopped after… you left.”

His jaw clenched, and I saw the pain echo in his eyes, a mirror reflecting the ache I had always felt, on his birthday, on mine. The loss seemed much more amplified on days with such happy memories.

“You used to love celebrating.” I whispered.

He shrugged, “What was the point? You weren’t here. It felt wrong,”

Chapter 5

I licked my lips. “I’m sorry.”

His gaze turned to me, sharp and intense. “Why are you sorry?” he chuckled, “Not your fault.”

“Not even with your Mom and Dad?”

“Eh,” he made a face, “They tried. But birthdays make me miserable now.”

“Me, too.”

But then, a memory bloomed in my mind, a secret whisper of a truth that was embarrassing to admit. “I always baked something, I confessed, my voice barely a whisper. “Every year, even after we… even after I left. Cookies, sometimes cupcakes, just to keep the tradition alive. Just to remember you.”

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He looked at me, his eyes widening, searching my face with an expression I couldn’t understand. “You did?” he asked, his voice a hushed echo.

I nodded, a shy smile playing on my lips. Always watched your favorite movie too, that old pirate flick you used to quote for weeks after.”

A choked laugh escaped his lips, a sound laced with both pain and wonder. He reached out, his thumb gently tracing the line of my cheek, his touch a butterfly landing on a flower. “God, Flors. For your birthdays, I’d just get drunk and wake up in the bed of a woman I didn’t know the name of.” He shook his head, “I didn’t deal with it in the healthiest way,”

The mention of another woman made me wince Internally, but I didn’t say anything.

“Flora,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion, “you did all that, alone?”

I shrugged, trying to lighten the mood. “I liked thinking of the good times, you know? I… truly thought I’d never see you again. It was like a part of me

had died?

He pulled me closer, his embrace a silent balm, a promise whispered in the quiet hum of the night. I nestled into his arms, the familiar scent of his cologne a bittersweet comfort. And in that moment, bathed in the glow of the moon and the embers of memories, his breath smelling of sugar and enconut, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Felix?” I whispered.

“Hmm?” The sound he made was muffled by his head in my hair.

“I missed you.” My voice was so soft when I said it, I wondered if he had even heard it. He didn’t say anything back. But I waited.

He pushed me away. “I missed you, too.” He said. His voice was gruff, and his eyes held a faraway look. His gaze fluttered to me, and to the half–eaten cake, and then back to me. “You…you should leave, now,” His voice was suddenly detached. My heart sank in my chest.

One moment, we were islands bathed in moonlight, sharing the bittersweet symphony of Chopin and whispers of birthdays past. The next, Felix was a storm cloud rolling in, his face contorting into a mask of anger I’d never seen before.

I reached out to touch his face, staring into his eyes, willing him to look at me, to smile at him.

His words, clipped and harsh, lashed out like icy rain. “Stop it, Flora,” he snapped, his valer tout with a tension that made the air crackle. “Just stop.”

My heart, nestled so comfortably in the warmth of his embrace moments ago, now felt like a fragile bird trapped in a cage of ribs. I recoiled from him, suddenly taking my hand away. “What did I do?” I whispered, my voice lost in the thunder of his sudden rage.

“Nothing, he spat, the word cutting through the air like a whip. “Just… leave.”

Leave? The word hung in the air. My mind reeled, searching for the thread of logic, the spark of his anger I’d somehow missed.

“Eelix, I pleaded, my voice catching in my throat, “when will you forgive me?”

The question, a desperate vine reaching for him across the abyss, only seemed to fuel his fury. “Leave!” he roared, the sound echoing through the room, shaking the very walls. “Now!”

Tears, unshed and burning, pricked at my eyes. My feet, rooted to the spot, refused to obey the harsh command. “This isn’t you,” I rasped, my voice barely a tremor. Please, tell me whats wrong

And then, it was as if a dam broke. His anger, a torrent held back for inn

Chapter 85

forgiven.”

His fist slammed against the wall, the sound a guttural cry of self–reproach. “I promised to protect you! I swore I’d keep you safe!” He turned on me, his eyes blazing with a pain more raw than I’d ever witnessed. “And I failed.”

His words, each syllable a jagged shard, ripped through me. The weight of his guilt, suffocating and heavy, became my own. But through the storm, through the deafening rear of his pain, I saw a flicker of truth, a shard of the reason behind his walls.

He blamed himself. And the anger, I realised, was just a twisted reflection of his grief, a

“Felix,” I whispered, reaching out to him, my fingers trembling. “It wasn’t your fault.”

raging inside him he couldn’t seem to calm

But he recoiled, as if my touch burned him. “Get out!” he said loudly, his voice raw with despair. “Just go!”

This time, my legs obeyed. The force of his pain, the hurricane of his emotions, propelled me back, my feet stumbling, my heart a shattered mirror reflecting the chaos within him.

He lunged, pushing me towards the door, his eyes a storm of reproach and fury. And then, with a deafening slam, he shut me out, leaving me alone in the darkness of the corridor, the echo of his words a relentless storm around me.

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