Every story has roots.
Every character carries a truth. Every tale is someone’s reality.

A note before the pages

This story is fiction. Mostly.
Like every work of fiction I’ve ever been drawn to, it carries fragments of truth between the lines. Not explanations, just small recognitions. Things that hurt. Things that shape us. Things we learn to hide.

18 Days After is different from what I had written before. It still carries my sarcasm — mostly self-directed — that slightly sharp humor I use as a shield when things feel too heavy. But beneath it lies a reality many women know well, and rarely speak about openly.
This book did not come from a plan. It came from observation. From questions I never asked out loud. From moments that linger, even when we insist they no longer matter.
At its core, it is a story about friendship. The kind that stays when everything else falls apart. The kind that holds you upright when you no longer trust your own strength. True friendship.
It is also about abuse. Not only the visible, violent kind, but the quiet, suffocating one. The kind that erodes you slowly, until you almost forget who you were before it began.
And it is about a woman who believes she has reached the limits of herself, without realizing that something in her has already begun to move. She forgot how strong she was.

In some ways, the younger version of me was a Nikita: stubborn, loud, independent. Braver than she probably should have been. And yes, I could have lived parts of her story. In small ways, perhaps I already have. But I was lucky. I rose in time.

Loss stays with us.
Life does too. Not loudly. Not heroically.
Just enough.
We all have the strength to move on.

Quotes

Music, Nikita is infinite.”
“What does infinite mean?” I’d ask.
“It means it has no end. It’s not like this room, which goes from here to there. It keeps going, past where you can see, and further still, to where someone else can see what you can’t, and then another person further than that. Everything can be new.

These memories…
Every yesterday becomes a memory and slips on its own into a decorated box, vivid, colorful, carefully sealed. Inside it are hundreds of smaller ones, each bearing a golden label: joy, sadness, shame, fear, pain, love, guilt. Some stand alone, pure as they were; others are mixed, tangled. Sometimes, when you search for your father’s face, sorrow comes out with it, the sorrow of losing him. That’s the tangled kind. And what you end up feeling depends on which one you pulled out first, because the second always hits harder.
If in a melancholy moment you summon the grief over your father’s absence, the warmth of his love rises with it and sweeps away all the other, purer recollections. It brings only the sweetest moments along. But no matter how hard you try, you cannot keep the wrong boxes closed. Those who hold the things you never wanted to remember. No matter how hard you try, you cannot sort the tangled memories from the pure ones. Perhaps you manage it for a while, but memory… memory cannot be tamed.
When you begin to lose the ability to choose wisely, when the darkness piles up, when the bitter fragments become too many, when they threaten the balance of your mind, you make new boxes. You give them names. You throw everything you remember. Beautiful things, ugly things. Everything. Locked. Buried. Forgotten.
And for a while, you rest. You’re fine enough to believe it will last.

Every disaster, every destruction, every pain, every downfall has its own way of unfolding.
Sometimes it strikes when you least expect it, and other times it comes slowly, leaving its marks before it fully arrives. Traces in your life.
Whether many or few, they are there. If you’re paying attention, if you gather them up… they become the things you remember when you’re down.
Every word, every gesture, every glance, every subtle trace that led you to this moment.

Songs that breathe inside the book

Music has a way of slipping between the lines — these are the songs living inside the book.

Can you find yourself in the characters?

Every story carries a reflection of someone — sometimes, it’s us.

The Zodiac Lens

Not only by birth — but by energy

Nikita — Leo
A blaze that walks on two legs.
Nikita lights a room simply by walking into it. Extroverted, magnetic, reckless in the ways that make life feel real, she is the spark in every crowd. She moves fast, laughs hard, takes risks as if motion were survival.
And beneath the brilliance lies a quiet truth: she wants to be seen, not admired, but understood.
Why Leo: Because she carries light, even when she doesn’t want to show it.

Markos — Scorpio sun, Aries rising
Loud fire wrapped in water.
Deep-feeling, fiercely loyal, impulsively protective. Markos loves with intensity that borders on devotion, and he never gives only half of himself.
Why Scorpio: Because his love is always absolute

Yiorgos — Taurus
Unshakable. Protective. Built from bedrock.
Grounded, steady, the calm in every storm. Yiorgos anchors others simply by standing where he is.
Why Taurus: Because he is the ground beneath everyone else’s feet.

Rachel — Sagittarius moon in a Virgo world
Restless spirit, razor-sharp clarity.
Her intuition is Sagittarius; her mind is Virgo, bold yet analytical, untamed yet precise. She sees beneath the surface with both instinct and intellect.
Why this mix: Because she thinks with precision and feels with fire.

Eirini — Libra
Harmony, softness, beauty in every detail.
She balances without effort, soothes without trying, and sees the good when others see the chaos.
Why Libra: Because she is calmness in human form.

Dimitra — Cancer
The safe harbor.
She understands before you speak, comforts without asking for anything back, and fills spaces with quiet emotional warmth.
Why Cancer: Because she makes room for others inside herself.

James — Scorpio sun, Capricorn rising
Quiet storms, steady hands.
Born on the same day as Markos, shaped by a different sky. His strength is silent, strategic, disciplined, the kind that notices everything and reveals nothing.
Why Scorpio: Because his depth is a calm sea, not a wave.

The real thing

Half of the story takes place on a small island in the Aegean Sea opposite Paros. Its name, Antiparos, literally means “the island opposite Paros” — a place defined not by what it is, but by what it sees. A small, beautiful island that you can drive around in an hour, but it is so full of life.

The Saloon Bar at 18 Days After was inspired by the Lucky Luke bar in Antiparos. It is just as it is described in the story — a small, tiny bar in the town’s central square, where the nights last until morning. Next door is The Doors, an authentic rock bar dedicated to Jim Morrison.

The unit referred to 18 Days After as S.O.F., the elite unit of the Greek Police, is fictional. However, the Greek Police counterterrorism unit is officially
called EKAM (Special Suppressive Counterterrorism Unit). To this day, only one woman serves in its ranks.

Ekali, where Markos’ house is located, lies outside the dense urban core of Athens, in the city’s northern suburbs. Along with the Athenian Riviera, it is considered one of the most affluent and aristocratic areas of the capital.

Bouzoukia remain the most popular form of nightlife in Greece, across all ages. The country’s biggest music stars are not pop artists, but laiké singers. And yes, women climb on tables and chairs to dance tsifteteli (or karsilama) at every opportunity. And the men—who want more space—dance zeibekiko (on the floor or the dance floor). And no, they don’t break plates anymore. Just throw flowers, tons of them.

After a night at the bouzoukia, tradition calls for soup. It’s where Nikita took James after they left the bouzoukia within the first hour of their meeting.
On the edges of the city’s nightlife districts, small restaurants stay open until morning, serving nothing but soup — believed to soothe the stomach after alcohol and sleeplessness, before finally going home to sleep. These places are known as late-night soup spots.

The city where Irini lives, Thessaloniki, is an amazing coastal city in northern Greece, about 500 km from Athens.
Lamia, the city where Nikita first met his father, is a provincial town located 200 kilometers north of Athens.
Around 140 km from Athens is the beautiful city of Nafplio, the place where Nikita finally came to terms with her ghosts.


Topography

Notes, moments, and things I couldn’t leave out — even if they didn’t fit.

Athens, Nikita’s place


Antiparos. Pop’s small house, where love starts


London, where James lived