No flowers for the dead - Chapter 47: Chapter 47
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The pen felt heavier than she remembered.
Alina hadn’t written anything longer than a letter or a thank-you note in years. Words used to come easily, flowing in love notes, soft margins, journal pages hidden beneath her pillow.
But this was different.
This wasn’t for Elias.
This wasn’t even about him.
This was for them.
For the women left behind.
For herself.
⸻
She sat on the balcony of the apartment she used to share with Elias—a place that no longer felt like a shrine to him, but a quiet kind of sanctum.
A single lamp flickered beside her. A notebook rested on her lap. Rae had given it to her after the press conference. “You’re the only one who knew all of us,” she had said. “You’re the one who can write it right.”
The pages were still blank.
But her fingers were steady now.
⸻
She began simply:
“This is not a story of a powerful man.”
“This is a story of the women who loved him, who survived him, and who outgrew the shadow of his name.”
⸻
She wrote of Rae’s first visit to the apartment—how Elias had left a photograph of her, years old, tucked behind a book of Pablo Neruda poems.
She wrote of Elara’s rage—the fire that had once threatened to burn them all down, now channeled into leadership, into purpose.
She wrote of herself, quietly and honestly.
Of the days when she loved Elias not for who he was, but for who she thought she could help him become.
And of the nights she learned love was never meant to be built on silences and secrets.
⸻
By morning, the first ten pages were finished.
She didn’t reread them.
She didn’t need to.
They were raw, imperfect, true.
Rae read them first.
Elara second.
Both women cried—quietly, separately—and then returned to Alina not with edits, but with gratitude.
“You’re not just telling his story,” Elara whispered. “You’re giving us back ours.”
⸻
They decided the memoir wouldn’t be published under Elias’s name.
It would be called .
It would belong to the living.
To the women who loved fiercely, lost deeply, and chose to lead anyway.
Alina hadn’t written anything longer than a letter or a thank-you note in years. Words used to come easily, flowing in love notes, soft margins, journal pages hidden beneath her pillow.
But this was different.
This wasn’t for Elias.
This wasn’t even about him.
This was for them.
For the women left behind.
For herself.
⸻
She sat on the balcony of the apartment she used to share with Elias—a place that no longer felt like a shrine to him, but a quiet kind of sanctum.
A single lamp flickered beside her. A notebook rested on her lap. Rae had given it to her after the press conference. “You’re the only one who knew all of us,” she had said. “You’re the one who can write it right.”
The pages were still blank.
But her fingers were steady now.
⸻
She began simply:
“This is not a story of a powerful man.”
“This is a story of the women who loved him, who survived him, and who outgrew the shadow of his name.”
⸻
She wrote of Rae’s first visit to the apartment—how Elias had left a photograph of her, years old, tucked behind a book of Pablo Neruda poems.
She wrote of Elara’s rage—the fire that had once threatened to burn them all down, now channeled into leadership, into purpose.
She wrote of herself, quietly and honestly.
Of the days when she loved Elias not for who he was, but for who she thought she could help him become.
And of the nights she learned love was never meant to be built on silences and secrets.
⸻
By morning, the first ten pages were finished.
She didn’t reread them.
She didn’t need to.
They were raw, imperfect, true.
Rae read them first.
Elara second.
Both women cried—quietly, separately—and then returned to Alina not with edits, but with gratitude.
“You’re not just telling his story,” Elara whispered. “You’re giving us back ours.”
⸻
They decided the memoir wouldn’t be published under Elias’s name.
It would be called .
It would belong to the living.
To the women who loved fiercely, lost deeply, and chose to lead anyway.
End of No flowers for the dead Chapter 47. Continue reading Chapter 48 or return to No flowers for the dead book page.