She stood at the edge of the water, shoes in hand, toes buried in damp sand while the tide kissed her ankles in slow, deliberate waves. The ocean had always terrified her as a child - too vast, too loud, too unknowable. It reminded her that some things couldn't be controlled, couldn't be mapped or measured, couldn't be undone. But now, standing there, she didn't feel fear. She felt weightless. Not because the past had disappeared, but because it had loosened its grip.
The sky above was streaked with amber and rose, like the day itself was exhaling. The breeze played with the hem of her coat and brushed strands of hair across her cheek, and for once, she didn't brush them away. She simply stood still, breathing - not shallow, not tense, not rehearsed. Just breathing. Fully, deeply, like she had space again.
There were no headlines left to fight, no lawyers to confront, no stolen files waiting to be recovered or burned. Westbridge had faded into the background of the city like all institutions eventually do - solid on the outside, hollow beneath. She had done what she came to do. Not cleanly. Not without scars. But she had spoken when no one else did. She had broken the silence that nearly drowned her. And in that rupture, something had shifted.
The foundation was small, but it carried her sister's name. Lily was no longer just a memory whispered in grief or a secret scribbled in a file. She lived now in policies, in safe protocols, in the eyes of young interns who read Nora's name on paper but never knew what it had cost her to sign it. Nora didn't look for recognition. She didn't speak at conferences or chase interviews. Her victories were quieter. More permanent.
She sat down in the sand, letting the grains cling to her skin as the tide rose and fell like breath against the shoreline. Her hands rested on her knees. Her eyes stayed on the horizon, where the sea bled into the sky. No music. No voices. Just the wind threading through her thoughts and the sound of the world continuing - indifferent, beautiful.
Rowan hadn't written. She hadn't expected him to. Their last conversation had been raw, real, unadorned by illusion. Not everything unfinished needs to be fixed. Some people are meant to pass through us like storms - not to stay, but to show us what we can withstand.
She didn't hate him.
But she didn't wait for him either.
That was the difference now.
She didn't feel whole. But she no longer felt hollow. Somewhere in the quiet middle, in that fragile space between what was taken and what she chose to reclaim, she had started to find herself again. Not the girl who ran. Not the woman who returned with a scalpel in her heart. But someone softer. Someone sharper. Someone new.
She closed her eyes.
The waves whispered against the sand like lullabies.
And for the first time in years, she didn't resist the quiet.
She let it hold her.