Chapter 13 A New Dawn In Satin And Silver

• Zara eventually rose and made her way down the dark passage to her bedroom, walking past the bags that lay unopened like a polite guest. Her room had its usual scent, as it smelt like cedar wood and her favourite vanilla diffuser. The curtains soaked gently in the afternoon breeze. She was in her room, but she wasn’t searching for rest. Moving toward the bottom drawer of her old wooden chest, she knelt before it, and her fingers instantly found what they were looking for. She found her diary, and that brought more excitement than it normally should have. A bit worn around the edges, as the pages were still thick and heavy with ink and emotions, she carefully opened it, as if scared to not rip it apart. She flipped through until she got to the last pages; this was where she always kept contact details, numbers, and addresses of loved ones and friends she hadn’t spoken to in a while and family she had distanced herself from.
• She was not ready to call everyone, not yet, but something inside her told her it was time to reconnect, even if not to everyone, but to the people she considered closest. Her healing wasn’t just physical; there was a deep wound inside her that had longed for acknowledgement and perhaps forgiveness. Closing the diary, she pressed it against her chest as her eyes closed, letting her heart sink into the warm embrace depicted in the book. Then she remembered there was something she needed to do., taking the book firmly in her hand, she walked back to the living room, scanning through her purse in search of the contact details she had collected from Daniel so she could add it to her diary. Moments later, she found it folded amid some cards in her purse; she brought it out, unfolding it, as she motioned towards the cushion to sit down. After which she placed the paper carefully into the diary pocket at the end of the pages, feeling satisfied. She knew Deen wasn’t just a mystery anymore; he had become a thread, a thread she couldn’t stop pulling. She would begin unravelling the thread tomorrow, but tonight, today, she would rest in her soul and her own home.
• The night passed gently in a humble hum, like a lullaby. Zara slept deeply, without fear, as she was wrapped in the warm embrace of her bed and was surrounded by the scent and silence only she knew how to emit. The gentle beam of the sunlight, filtered through the grasp of the curtain, cast stripes across the ivory linen sheet and her cheeks. This wasn’t just any morning, but the morning that helped the key to her freedom. The date she had circled in her heart after she collected that contact address from Daniel.