Five years later, Paris hummed beneath the early evening stars.
In a converted gallery tucked between cobblestone alleys and ivy-wrapped cafés,
people gathered beneath a single banner stretched across the entrance:
"Breath and Brush — The Art of Celeste Leclair, Inspired by the Poetry of Elias Moreau."
Inside, the walls pulsed with light and memory.
Each canvas a resurrection—storms over sea cliffs,
two silhouettes walking through rain,
a man seated beside a window, notebook in hand,
the oxygen mask forgotten in the glow of dawn.
The poems were there too.
Printed beside each painting, Elias's words breathed again,
stirring laughter, tears, long silences.
His presence moved between frames like a current under paint.
Celeste, older now, silver streaking her hair,
stood near the center of it all.
She wore a navy coat and carried herself like someone both hollowed and whole.
A young man approached her.
Nervous. Eyes wide.
"I—I just wanted to say," he stammered,
"your husband's poem... 'The Weight of a Single Breath'…
I read it after my father died.
It didn't fix the grief, but... it gave it shape.
It gave me breath again."
Celeste pressed a hand to her chest,
her heart swelling and breaking all at once.
She thanked him.
And when he turned away,
she whispered to herself,
"You saved him, Elias. Just like you saved me."
The gallery bustled around her.
But she walked to the final painting,
a quiet piece tucked in the back:
Two figures by the sea.
Holding hands.
Light catching their profiles,
as if the sky itself had paused to listen.
Beneath it, the caption read:
"We won at life, but I lost you in the moment."