THE ECHOES OF ELENA

James didn't return to the house until much later that evening. The streets of Elowen were quiet, touched by dusk, with the gentle sounds of nightfall creeping in. His footsteps were slow, hesitant, as if each one carried the weight of everything he couldn't say.

The house was dimly lit when he stepped inside. A faint golden glow spilled from the kitchen. The scent of warm bread and mint tea lingered in the air. He hung his coat by the door and passed through the hall with the silence of someone unsure they belonged.

Mrs. Williams was seated at the kitchen table, folding a dish towel in her lap. She looked up when she heard him.

"There you are," she said gently.

James gave her a faint smile and nodded.

"She came by," she added after a beat.

James paused mid-step.

"Sophie?"

Mrs. Williams nodded. "She asked for you. Said she wanted to see you."

James inhaled through his nose and exhaled slowly. "I thought she might."

"She's worried about you," Mrs. Williams said. "She didn't say it, not directly. But you can feel it in the way she speaks. You matter to her, James."

"I care about her too," James replied, his voice almost a whisper. "That's why I've stayed away."

Mrs. Williams studied him with soft but firm eyes. "And has that helped? Either of you?"

James didn't answer.

Instead, he moved past her, toward the staircase. "I need some time," he said, more to himself than to her.

Mrs. Williams didn't press. She simply called after him, "Don't punish yourself for something you can't change."

Upstairs, James entered his room and closed the door behind him. The stillness of the space welcomed him like an old friend. He leaned against the wall, head tilted back, eyes closed.

A memory drifted in.

He was standing on a wooden bridge, the kind built over small creeks. A girl with laughing eyes and tangled hair stood beside him. Elena.

She'd been daring, bright. A light in the darkest corners of his life. The first person to make him feel human again after decades of loneliness.

He could still hear her voice.

"If you never age, and I do, will you still love me when I wrinkle?"

"Even when time forgets your name, I won't," he'd replied.

But time had forgotten her.

And she had slipped away.

Now here he was again, standing at the edge of another beginning—except this time, he wasn't sure if he had the right to hold onto it.

He crossed the room, opened a drawer, and pulled out a small box. Inside it was a locket—Elena's. He turned it over in his hand, watching how the light danced across its surface.

"I don't deserve another lover," he whispered aloud, voice cracking. "I could hardly keep the first one."

The confession fell into the quiet like a stone.

He pressed the locket to his chest and sat on the edge of the bed.

Downstairs, the house remained silent.

And James stayed in that stillness, caught between memory and the possibility of something new.

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