Chapter 199
Elara
Spring arrived with the kind of gentle insistence that made even the Bronx feel hopeful. The morning I received the envelope from RISD, my hands trembled so violently that I nearly dropped it on the kitchen floor. The paper was thick, expensive—the kind of stationery that carried weight before you even read the words.
"Open it," Raven urged from across the table, her coffee forgotten as she leaned forward with barely contained excitement. Diego had abandoned his sketchpad entirely, and even Yuki had emerged from her room, drawn by the tension crackling through our small apartment.
I slid my finger under the seal, forcing myself to breathe as I unfolded the letter. The first words blurred together—"We are pleased to inform you"—and suddenly I couldn't see anything at all through the tears.
"I got in," I whispered, the reality of it hitting me like a physical force. "I actually got in."
Raven's shriek could probably be heard in Manhattan. She launched herself at me, nearly knocking over both our chairs as she wrapped me in a fierce hug. "I knew it! I fucking knew they'd be idiots not to take you!"
Diego was grinning, Yuki was clapping, and I was crying—not the silent, controlled tears I'd learned to shed in Blackwood, but the messy, overwhelming kind that came from something breaking open inside my chest. This was real. This was mine. No one had bought it for me, manipulated it into existence, or held it over my head as leverage.
My phone buzzed with a text from Raven: We're going out tonight. No arguments.
I looked up to find her watching me with that fierce protectiveness I'd come to rely on. "What about you?" I asked, suddenly aware that I'd been so consumed by my own news that I hadn't asked about her applications.
She shrugged, but her smile was genuine. "Parsons waitlisted me. FIT offered a spot. Not as prestigious as RISD, but"—she met my eyes—"we're both getting out. That's what matters."
The weight of that truth settled over us both. We were leaving. Actually leaving.
"We're going to be in different cities," she said quietly, and I heard the question underneath: Will we still be us?
I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. "Distance doesn't change friendship. You think a couple hundred miles is going to make me forget my best friend?"
"Dramatic much?" But her eyes were wet.
"I'm an artist. Drama is our medium." I squeezed her fingers. "Besides, when you graduate and become some hotshot designer with your own studio, you're giving me a job. We already agreed."
She laughed, that sharp, bright sound that always made me feel less alone. "Deal. But only if you promise to paint something that doesn't make me cry for once."
"No promises."
We spent the rest of breakfast planning—tentatively, carefully, like people who'd learned not to count on good things lasting but were willing to try anyway. Diego suggested we frame our acceptance letters side by side. Yuki offered to help me move when the time came. The apartment felt full in a way it never had before, packed with the kind of future I'd stopped believing I deserved.
Later, after everyone had left for class or work, I sat alone at the kitchen table and pulled out my phone. There were people I needed to tell. People who'd earned the right to know.
Ms. Rivera's response came within minutes: I always knew you had it in you. This is just the beginning, Elara. Make them remember your name.
I stared at those words until they blurred, remembering her steady faith even when I'd had none in myself. She'd been suspended because of me, pushed out because I'd dared to challenge the wrong people. But she'd never once made me feel like it was my fault.
Thank you, I typed back. I won't let you down.
Calling Mamá was harder. I waited until I knew she'd be on her lunch break, sitting in that small break room. When she answered, I could hear the exhaustion in her voice—twelve-hour shifts did that to a person.
"Elara? Is everything okay?"
"I got into RISD," I said, the words tumbling out before I could second-guess them. "The letter came today. Full scholarship. I'm going to study art in Providence."
The silence stretched so long I thought the connection had dropped. Then I heard it—the small, broken sound of my mother crying.
"Mamá—"
"Your father," she managed through tears, her voice thick with emotion I rarely heard from her anymore. "He would be so proud. So proud, Elara. You did this yourself. No one gave it to you."
I closed my eyes, letting her words wash over me. She was right. This was mine. Built from the wreckage of everything I'd lost, created in those late nights when I'd painted until my hands cramped, earned through every moment I'd refused to give up even when giving up would have been easier.
"I wish he could see it," I whispered.
"He can. I know he can."
We talked for another twenty minutes—about logistics, about timing, about whether I'd come home for holidays. Normal mother-daughter conversation, the kind we'd never really had before. When we finally hung up, I felt lighter somehow, as if sharing this joy had made it more real.
That left one more person to tell. The hardest one.
I stared at Julian's name in my contacts for a full five minutes before I managed to type out a message: I got into RISD. Full scholarship.
His response came faster than I expected: I never doubted you would. What do you want as a celebration?
I set the phone down, suddenly aware of how much had shifted between us. He'd kept his distance since Boston, giving me space to process everything—Sloane's exile, the Kennedy family's cold calculations, the way he'd chosen me over everything his world had told him mattered. We'd texted sporadically, careful conversations that skirted around the enormous weight of what we both knew but hadn't fully addressed.
But now, sitting in my small Bronx kitchen with an acceptance letter that represented everything I'd fought for, I realized what I actually wanted. What I needed.
I want to see Sloane, I typed, my thumb hovering over the send button for a long moment before I pressed it.
The three dots indicating he was typing appeared immediately, then disappeared. Appeared again. I could practically feel his surprise, his concern, his attempt to understand what I was really asking for.
Finally: Are you sure?
Yes.
Another pause, longer this time. I imagined him in his office, staring at his phone, trying to parse my motivations. Wondering if this was about closure or revenge or something else entirely.
I'll arrange it, he sent at last. When?
Soon. Before I leave for Providence.
Okay.
He wasn't asking why. Wasn't trying to talk me out of it or protect me from whatever I might find. He was simply... agreeing. Trusting that I knew what I needed.
Thank you, I sent back.
Anything for you.
I set the phone down and stared at the acceptance letter still spread on the table in front of me. RISD. Providence. A fresh start in a city where no one knew my history, where I could be just Elara Vance, artist, instead of Elara Vance, the girl who'd loved the wrong man and paid for it in ways most people couldn't imagine.
But first, I needed to close this chapter properly. And that meant facing the woman who'd been my tormentor in one life and my rival in this one. The woman who was carrying Julian's child but had lost everything else.
The woman I'd helped destroy.
I thought about what I'd say to her, what I wanted from this meeting. Not forgiveness—I didn't think either of us was capable of that. Not understanding—we were too different, wanted too different things. Maybe just... acknowledgment. A recognition that we'd both been caught in a system that pitted women against each other and called it romance. That we'd both made choices we couldn't take back.
Or maybe I just needed to see her one more time to know, with absolute certainty, that it was truly over.
My phone buzzed with a message from Julian: Tomorrow afternoon. I'll send a car.