Selene's/Atasha's POV;
Milan was a city of contrast—its beauty as sharp as its edges.
Mornings began with lectures in medical terminology, the smell of sterilizer always clinging faintly to my white coat. My nursing course was intense. We learned not only how to treat wounds but how to read pain in silence, how to stay calm when hearts stopped, and how to speak softly to those on the edge of despair.
It was humbling. Life and death didn't wait for anyone—not even for broken hearts.
In the evenings, I shed my coat and wrapped myself in fabric, lines, color. My little rented studio, filled with sketchbooks and coffee mugs, became my sanctuary. Fashion design wasn't just a side passion anymore—it was part of who I was. Each dress I designed seemed to carry a piece of me: the soft sadness in pastel silks, the hope in stitched embroidery, and sometimes… the loneliness in midnight tones.
There were nights I'd look at a mannequin draped in one of my creations and think, Would Antonio recognize me now? Would he see this version of Selene—Atasha—who learned to hold herself up when no one else did?
The city kept moving, and so did I. But sometimes, in the middle of all that beauty—cathedrals glowing in golden dusk, the clatter of trams on cobbled roads—I'd pause. I'd feel the ghost of his presence beside me. Quiet. Steady. Like he never truly left.
But I'd shake it off, smile at strangers, and remind myself: This is my time to heal, to build, to dream.
And maybe, just maybe, to make peace with the past I still secretly carried in my chest like a heartbeat no one else could hear.
Antonio's POV;
Success wasn't what I imagined it to be.
I stood on the balcony of my high-rise apartment overlooking the city skyline, the lights beneath like scattered stars—but they didn't shine like her eyes once did.
The business took off faster than expected. After university, I poured everything into it—my frustration, my regrets, my sleepless nights. I opened one branch, then three. I made the front cover of an entrepreneur magazine last month. I smiled in the photos, shook hands with men in tailored suits, and gave speeches about chasing dreams.
But every applause echoed hollow.
Each milestone reminded me not of victory, but of who I wanted to share it with.
Atasha.
Or Selene. To me, she was both—one name in the world, another in my heart.
I tried writing to her. I tried calling from different numbers, messaging through mutual friends. Nothing worked. She had vanished like she'd never existed. But the irony was, she existed everywhere. In the silence of my mornings. In the way I brewed coffee, still the way she liked it. In the sketches I kept from her portfolio—the ones she left behind without realizing.
I used to think I'd prove something to her. That when she saw how far I'd come, she'd come back. But now I knew—that wasn't love. That was desperation. And she didn't deserve that.
She deserved truth, peace, and the kind of love that never needed to be earned. Just returned.
So here I was. Successful. Respected. Admired.
And yet, painfully aware that none of it meant anything if the one person I built it for… wasn't beside me.