The sun dipped below clouds that seemed watercolor-painted—soft, gray washes with peach undertones. The air pulsed with the thrum of life, but no longer weighed down upon Ariella in the same manner as once before. Her steps were slow now, not through hesitation, but through deliberation. Each step was a deliberate one, each breath a consideration, each silence a choice.
It had been almost two weeks since she'd exited Logan. Some mornings she woke up with a tight chest, a hangover memory curling in her stomach like the coals of smoke from a fire that hadn't gone out yet. But today. Today, she'd opened her eyes to birdsong, and the quiet of his voice no longer an absence but space—room to expand.
She wandered through the Sunday market on the edge of the neighborhood. One of those street things—tents, woven fiber mats, roasted corn, and sandalwood scent. People drifted by bins of used clothing, vases of air plants, and wicker baskets of homemade soap. Ariella was not shopping. She merely wanted to be surrounded by things that did not demand anything of her.
Her fingers stroked a showcase of linen-bound notebooks on one of the booths, and that's when she noticed a soft voice behind the table.
"You have gentle hands," the woman mentioned, not in a compliment, but in observation. Her voice was soothing, such as the rustling of leaves against each other.
Ariella looked up. The vendor was older, maybe late fifties, with a circle of gray curls and a face that told stories. Her eyes were dark—not the kind that stabbed you, but the kind that saw without having to look for very long.
"Thanks," Ariella said, not understanding why the words were so leaden.
The woman's stall was arranged with care. Crystals in tiny bowls, essential oil rollers with labels handwritten in cursive, a tray of necklaces made from polished stones, and stacks of books with titles like The Language of Silence and Mending the Spirit.
"You're not here to shop," the woman said, smiling slightly.
Ariella gave a small laugh. "Is it that obvious?"
"It's not obvious. It's just clear."
She did not know what to do with that, so she just stayed there. Her eyes fell on a book resting on the edge of the table: The Art of Returning to Yourself. She picked it up and flipped through a few pages. One sentence stopped her.
"Some departures are just the beginning of becoming."
She hadn't said a word, but the woman surely sensed the stillness in her.
"You've left something recently," the vendor said gently, not asking—just naming.
Ariella nodded. "Someone."
The woman offered no pity, no immediate advice, just a quiet presence. Then she pointed to a small ceramic bowl filled with smooth black stones. "Pick one."
Ariella hesitated, then reached into the bowl and pulled out a stone. On one side, a word was etched in gold ink: Permission.
Her breath caught slightly.
The vendor smiled. "That one is seen by people who must give themselves something they wait all the time for others to offer."
Ariella looked down at the stone again, her thumb running over the letters. "Permission to do what?"
"That is not for me to answer," the woman said. "But perhaps you already know."
Ariella waited quietly for a while, the sounds of the marketplace fading into a hum at the periphery. She recalled all those moments she'd sought Logan's approval, Eva's tacit nod of agreement, the world's recognition that she was enough. That she was not too much, or too little, or too quiet. She recalled how she'd tried to shrink herself to fill the spaces Logan had given her—spaces which were always just a little too cramped or just a little too hollow.
"I think I've been asking for permission to let go," she said finally.
The woman nodded as if Ariella had passed a riddle only she could solve.
"Then maybe today," the woman said, "you begin letting go of needing permission to begin."
The words didn't strike as a revelation, as a punch. They heated up like tea in the chest. Ariella was not used to advice that did not ring of instruction. This was different. This was. Invitation.
She bought the book and the stone. Not because she needed them, but because they felt like reminders of something that she did not want to forget.
As she was walking away, the woman said softly, "Your becoming is not behind you."
Ariella looked over her shoulder, the words stopping her breath. "I hope not."
The woman just smiled and returned to rearranging her crystals.
⸻
She walked a little farther, her bag a little heavier now that the book was there, the stone still and silent in her hand like an anchor. It was reassuring to have something that did not demand, did not attract.
Ariella had wandered to a park she hadn't visited in years. It wasn't somewhere she was going; her feet had simply carried her there. There was a bench near the pond, half-shaded by a trellised tree with low-growing branches that seemed to lean in, as if to hear.
She sat and unfolded the book.
"The body knows before the mind admits. And the heart… the heart waits patiently for us to listen.".
She closed it again, her eyes watering with tears she couldn't shed. Not because it hurt, but because the truth of it demanded she remain motionless.
She thought about the girl who had loved Logan—the girl who had bent and compromised and loved loudly and softly and quietly and loudly again. She didn't hate that girl. She just wasn't certain she wanted to be her anymore.
Not exactly.
She did not want to maintain her vulnerability, but not get trampled over. She did not want to love, but lose herself in the process. And she did not want to heal, but according to someone else's timetable.
She sat in the park, a gentle breeze blowing through the pages of the book on her lap, and Ariella felt she was no longer mourning the loss of the relationship itself. She was mourning the way she'd lost herself within it.
And that grief was. Real. Almost sacred.
The stone lay beside her on the bench, Permission golden in the dappled light. She picked it up and pressed it against her chest, speaking softly, "I permit myself to heal. To move. To become."
It wasn't magic. Nothing had happened at once. But something did shift.
She didn't need Logan to come back and apologize.
She didn't need Eva's jealousy to be sane.
She didn't need to prove she was in a better place.
She just had to exist. Whole. Slowly. Truthfully.
She stayed on the bench till dusk. Then she got up, returned home, and placed the stone beside her bed. Not as a showpiece. But as a vow.