Elia leaves after the affair and she's not sure what feels worse, the betrayal or the guilt. It seemed like the easiest thing to do, the only thing to do, when Rhaegar comes home from the office one night and tells her he's met someone. She doesn't remember what she said to that, only remembers the pain in her gut that left her dizzy and gasping, the feeling that her world had just ended. The next morning they sit across each other from the breakfast table, the kids still in bed, and she tells him that all she asks is that he end it and they can try to pick the pieces up again. When he says he loves her, says that she's carrying his child and he wants to marry her, Elia packs a bag and heads for the airport.
It was the easiest thing to do, the only thing to do to maintain her sanity, to not fall apart completely. She had given everything up for him, had left her country, her family, her work, living in his home, using his credit cards, and maybe it was childish and she wasn't sane after all but at least she could leave before he made her, at least she would have that.
She doesn't think of Rhaenys and Aegon until she's at the airport and feels so guilty for it, feels her heart being ripped out all over again, but is it so wrong for a mother to admit that just can't do it anymore, does it make her as much of a monster as her husband? He leaves her in that house day after day and maybe it would be all right if it was only her children but Viserys and Daenerys come to live with them when Rhaenys is one and the house descends to chaos. She was only twenty years old and spent her days chasing after children and changing diapers, and when she got overwhelmed by the screaming and the mess she would weep in the laundry room, feeling so pathetic, hoping the sound of the washing machine would drown out her sobs.
And Rhaegar would come home in the evenings and the children would run to him, suddenly on their best behavior, so happy to see the parent who never scolded them, never lost his temper, and Elia would be forgotten.
He could deal with the children for a few weeks while she was gone then, get a taste of the life he had made for her.
Being back in Beirut makes her feel whole again, from the moment she steps off the plane to when she shows up at Oberyn's apartment in Hamra and her brother takes her into his arms, tucks her into his bed like she's a child and lets her sleep. Doran is there too when she wakes up, holds her silently as she tells them everything and Oberyn rages and rails, vowing to take him for all he's worth, to make him pay for what he did. She needs it in that moment, needs someone to hate Rhaegar as much as she does, but when the anger fades and the despair sets in it is Doran who comes to her, speaking softly and asking what she wants to do, sets her up in her own apartment with all the help she needs, and she suspects gets in touch with his contacts stateside to gather as much information as he could.
The divorce papers come a while after that, and Elia is so numb that she can't even look at them, can't even begin to think of hiring a lawyer to negotiate for her, can't think further than the effort it takes to get out of bed in the morning and get back into it at night. She barely leaves her room but is so exhausted from constantly checking her phone, her heart leaping in her chest every time she received a message or a call and then the inevitable misery when she realizes it's not from him. It leaves her feeling ragged and emptier than she had been those days after Aegon's birth when things first started to fall apart.
It's to save her that Doran tells her the truth, that Rhaegar has moved his girl into her house. And girl she is, some eighteen year old he met at a sushi restaurant in TriBeCa when he was out with his business partners, a girl he was willing to give everything up for. It disgusts her, the thought of her husband with a child nearly ten years his junior, the thought of him wanting her badly enough to start a family with her when it had taken him years of dating to finally open up to Elia, to start to let her into his heart. It disgusts her and she lets herself hate him a little bit, this man she thought she knew but maybe didn't after all.
It isn't as hard to get out of bed after that and she starts to leave her apartment, gets back in touch with the friends she had left behind all those years ago. After a while, when she starts to feel like herself again, like the Elia who spent her mornings at university and her nights at cafes, talking poetry and books and politics until dawn, the Elia she was until that trip she took to London when she walked into a bookshop alone and left on the arm of an architecture student with the deepest eyes she had ever seen.
There is even a man. His eyes are not the same shade of lilac, only dark blue, but they are brighter at least, not so weighted down with stress and sadness. She had gone to university with his sister and remembers that her husband took a liking to him when he came to visit her in Beirut, but if Arthur has any misplaced sense of loyalty left for his old friend he doesn't speak of it. Instead, he takes her dancing, cooks for her at her place, talks about a trip to Morocco for the New Year.
She doesn't let herself imagine a life together, not yet.
It makes her feel braver when she finally has to return to New York for the divorce proceedings when negotiations over child custody start to stall. And when she finds her husband in their house, looking so sick and pale, thinner than he's ever been, a ghost of the man he had been even in their worst years together, when he tells her that it was a mistake, that Lyanna went back to her family, that he all he wants is their old life back it makes her think for a moment she might say no. Almost.