Departure
No one saw it coming.
Not her professors who praised her talent.
Not her classmates who thought she was just stressed.
Not Vienna, who suspected something was wrong but never imagined this wrong.
Not Cole, who still waited every day for her to speak to him again.
Laura woke up one morning, stared blankly at the mirror, and realized she couldn’t do it anymore.
Her reflection looked unfamiliar—disheveled hair, hollow eyes, lips cracked from days of skipping meals. She touched her face like she was touching a stranger.
And for the first time, she whispered:
“I need to leave.”
The decision didn’t come from courage.
It came from exhaustion.
From survival instinct.
From the awareness that staying here meant drowning.
She went to the registrar alone.
Her hands trembled as she signed the form.
Her chest hurt as she handed over her ID.
But strangely, she didn’t cry.
The registrar looked up.
“Are you sure about this, Laura?”
She nodded with a calmness that felt unreal.
When she stepped outside the building, the wind felt colder, sharper. This was it—she was no longer a student. No more deadlines. No more critique sessions. No more pretending she was okay.
Hours later, she packed her things in silence.
Half-filled sketchbooks.
Smudged canvases.
Clothes she barely wore.
The apartment—her father’s last gift—looked even emptier now.
There was a single email waiting in her inbox:
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have been accepted into the Fiori d’Arte Healing Residency Program in Florence, Italy.
All expenses covered.
Mandatory departure within 48 hours.
She read it ten times.
Then she breathed, long and shaky, the kind of breath that sounds like both grief and relief.
It felt like fate giving her a hand.
Or maybe an escape door.
She booked the next flight.
Vienna saw her at the airport.
She had rushed there the moment she saw the posted announcement from the registrar. She found Laura standing near the departure gate, clutching a small suitcase, wearing oversized headphones and a hoodie two sizes too big for her.
“Laura…” Vienna’s voice cracked.
Laura turned, and for the first time in weeks, she tried to smile.
“I just need to breathe,” she whispered.
Vienna hugged her—tightly, desperately—like she could keep Laura from flying away if she held on long enough. But Laura didn’t break down. She didn’t shatter. She simply rested her chin on Vienna’s shoulder, tired beyond feeling.
When they pulled apart, Vienna wiped her eyes.
“Cole doesn’t know, does he?”
Laura shook her head.
“He’ll try to stop me. I’m… I can’t handle anything right now. Not even him.”
Vienna nodded, even if it hurt.
She watched Laura walk toward her gate, suitcase rolling behind her, steps steady but slow—as if each one cost her something.
Cole found out hours later.
He arrived at Laura’s apartment after class, ready to try again, ready to wait outside her door all night if he had to.
The landlord told him:
“She dropped her lease. She’s on a flight to Italy.”
Something inside him collapsed.
He didn’t shout.
He didn’t cry.
He simply sank onto the nearest stair, hands trembling, breath catching like his chest was being carved open.
She was gone.
And he never even got to say goodbye.
In the airplane, Laura finally cried—not loudly, not dramatically, but silently, with tears running down her cheeks as she stared out the window.
For the first time in her life, she was heading somewhere without anyone’s expectations.
Just her.
Her pain.
Her healing.
Her unfinished story.
Italy waited.
But she didn’t feel excited.
Just… empty.
And that emptiness was the closest thing she had to peace.
——-
Laura was already thousands of miles away—up in the sky, somewhere between the life she was running from and the life she didn’t know how to start. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. Every backward glance felt like a hand pulling her under.
But she didn’t leave quietly.
She left pieces of herself behind.
Three envelopes. Three names.
Three people she loved—but loved so much it hurt.
And she didn’t stay to watch them break.
SUE
Sue was filming a small vlog in her bedroom—nothing fancy, just her usual soft-lens comfort content:
“Hi, guys… so today we’re just cleaning my desk, kasi ang kalat ko—”
A light knock interrupted her.
One of the house helpers peeked through the door.
“Miss Sue… may iniabot po na sulat para sa inyo.”
“Huh? Para sakin?” she asked, confused, pressing her camera pause. “Kanino galing?”
“Hindi na po sinabi. Pero… sabi nung nag-abot, importante raw.”
The envelope was cream, thick, the handwriting painfully familiar.
Laura’s.
Her heartbeat dropped.
Her fingers trembled as she tore it open.
Inside, a letter—two pages, folded carefully, like Laura fought not to wrinkle it while crying.
Sue began reading.
LETTER TO SUE
Sue,
I’m writing this because I know I won’t have the courage to say it to your face.
I’m sorry for disappearing. I’m sorry for pulling away. I’m sorry for making you feel like you had to choose between me and the world you’re trying to build.
You’ve been a good cousin, ally, and a friend to me—even when I didn’t know how to be one back. But I saw you drifting. I saw the distance forming. I didn’t blame you. I didn’t hate you. I just… understood.
I know you were hurting too. And I know some of that hurt might’ve been because of me.
So I’m leaving before I turn into someone you resent.
Take care of yourself, Sue. Take care of the parts of your heart you forget to protect. You deserve a soft life, a steady one, an honest one.
And if one day, you remember me… I hope it’s not with bitterness.
Thank you for being my friend, even when I didn’t know how to stay standing.
— Laura
Sue didn’t even notice when her camera fell sideways on her bed.
She folded over the letter, sobbing so quietly it hurt.
Because in that moment, the guilt she’d been ignoring—the bitterness Avida had been feeding—finally bloomed into something sharp.
And it stabbed her right through.
EMILY
Emily was in her detention facility holding room, sitting on a metal bench under flickering fluorescent lights. She wasn’t handcuffed anymore, but the coldness of the room made her feel like she was.
A guard approached with a clipboard.
“Miss Emily Smith? Letter from your daughter.”
Emily’s entire body froze.
“Laura?” she whispered.
“Yes, ma’am. We were instructed to hand this once you’re allowed visitors again.”
Emily’s fingers shook as she took the envelope.
It smelled faintly like Laura’s perfume—vanilla and paint.
She swallowed hard and opened it slowly.
LETTER TO EMILY
Mom,
I don’t know how to face you right now. I don’t know how to understand you. I don’t know how to accept the truths you’ve kept from me.
My world feels like it’s upside down—and somehow, you’re at the center of both my comfort and my destruction.
I’m leaving because staying here is killing me. I need air, Mom. I need silence. I need space where I’m not the daughter of someone arrested, the daughter of someone poisoned, the daughter of someone who keeps secrets out of love or fear—I still don’t understand which one it is.
But please know this:
I love you, even when I don’t know how to look at you.
I love you, even when I’m angry.
I love you, even when I’m lost.
I just need to breathe. And I can’t—not here, not now, not like this.
I’m going away for a while. Maybe for long. Maybe for healing. Maybe for myself.
Don’t look for me. Not yet.
Heal yourself first, Mom.
Maybe when we’re both different people, we’ll find our way back.
— Laura
Emily pressed the letter to her chest and broke—silent, shaking sobs that filled the sterile room.
She wasn’t crying because her daughter left.
She was crying because she knew Laura was right.
COLE
Cole was in his bedroom, pacing, calling her phone for the twentieth time that day.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
He was mid-spiral when someone knocked on the door.
“Sir Cole,” the family driver said softly. “A letter for you, Cole. From miss Smith.”
Cole froze so violently the air felt like it cracked around him.
He snatched the envelope.
Shut the door.
And tore it open.
His name was written in the handwriting he knew better than his own heartbeat.
His lungs stopped working.
LETTER TO COLE
Cole,
I wish I could say this to your face, but if I did, I’d break. And I don’t want you to see that version of me.
You’ve been good to me. Kinder than I ever deserved. You’ve stayed with me through things no one should have to witness.
But I’m drowning, Cole. And I can’t let you drown with me.
Everything hurts. Everything feels heavy. Everything feels like I’m one breath away from collapsing. And you… you’re the only thing that makes me want to stay.
But that’s the problem.
I can’t stay for someone.
I need to stay for myself.
And right now—I don’t know how.
Don’t blame yourself for the things falling apart. They were breaking long before you tried to hold them together.
I love you.
I think I always did.
But I’m leaving because I want the chance to love you without the taste of pain in my mouth.
If the universe is kind, maybe it’ll let us start over someday.
Not as two broken people trying to save each other—
but as two healed souls finally ready to meet halfway.
Please don’t look for me.
Not yet.
— Laura
Cole couldn’t breathe.
He slid down the wall, letter trembling in his hands, chest aching with a grief so deep it felt physical.
And for the first time in his life—
Cole Hunstman cried without holding back.
Because he didn’t just lose the girl he loved.
He lost her quietly.
And quietly was always worse.