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### **Chapter 9: The Last Painting**
Elara stood before a blank canvas, the first she had dared to touch in months. Outside, the ocean sighed beneath a sky the color of ash and rose. Autumn had once again laid its golden hand across the town, and for the first time, the season didn't hurt quite as much.
She set out her brushes, her paints, and Theo's letter — unfolded beside her like a compass.
She painted slowly, deliberately. Every brushstroke was a memory. His laughter in the rain. The warmth of his hand around hers. The way he used to pause in the doorway, just to look at her. She painted the bench — their bench — and two figures sitting side by side beneath a twilight sky where sea and heaven blurred.
One figure looked ahead.
The other was fading, like mist touched by dawn.
When it was finished, Elara wrapped the canvas in linen and carried it to the cliffs. She placed it at the bench, sealed inside a weatherproof case, and walked back without looking over her shoulder.
The painting would remain — not for galleries, not for critics, but for him. A farewell only the sea could carry.
Her goodbye was not in words.
It was in color.
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