Aster’s expression turned sly. “Wasn’t it, though?”
I hesitated just long enough for her grin to widen before muttering, “If only.”
Her laughter rang low and unrestrained, echoing against the old plaster walls, warm in contrast to the cold morning pressing through the windows. “God, I knew I liked you.”
But as her laughter faded, I felt her gaze shift, sharper now, perceptive in a way that always made me uneasy. She was studying me, tracing the tension across my shoulders, the way my grip on the folder had become almost possessive, as if I needed the weight of it to stay grounded.
“You good?” she asked quietly. Her voice lost its teasing edge, softening into something more deliberate. “You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says, ‘I’m pretending to be composed, but I’m two seconds away from imploding and applying to some marine-biology program in Fiji.’”
That earned a smile from me, though it was thin and brief. I didn’t tell her that she wasn’t far off. My mind was still running in circles, replaying every word, every unspoken challenge, every flicker of something I shouldn’t have noticed in him.
Aster nudged me again, this time slower, gentler. “You need a break.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you need an actual break. Not caffeine and denial.”
“I have coffee,” I said, holding up my cup in weak protest.
She gave me a look that almost bordered on pity. “You need art.”
I blinked. “Art?”
“There’s an open studio course on Thursdays,” she said, her tone carrying that effortless persuasion I could never resist. “No grades, no professors, no pressure. Just a room, paint, and a few hours where no one expects anything of you. I go sometimes when my head won’t shut up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Aster, I can’t draw a straight line even with a ruler.”
“Then don’t,” she said simply. “Use your hands. Smear paint, throw color, ruin the canvas if you have to. It’s not about creating something beautiful, it’s about remembering how to breathe.”
I hesitated, my steps slowing as the hallway opened into the pale light beyond.
She kept going, her voice quieter now. “You walk around as if you’re bracing for the next disaster, like you’ve trained yourself to fix things before they break. But art doesn’t let you do that. It demands imperfection. It forces you to let go, to make a mess and not apologize for it.” She looked at me then, her expression uncharacteristically soft. “And sometimes,” she added, “it’s the only thing that reminds you you’re still here, that you haven’t disappeared into control.”
I looked away, teeth catching on the inside of my cheek, my throat tight with something I didn’t want to name. “You think I’m falling apart?”
“No,” she said, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. “I think you’re holding yourself together too tightly to notice you’ve stopped breathing.”
We stopped just outside the library steps, the winter light spilling through the branches, scattering thin, restless shadows across the brick Aster tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her breath curling in the air before dissolving.
“Come with me next Thursday,” she said. “You don’t have to draw. You don’t even have to speak. Just show up. Let something be imperfect for once.”
Her voice wasn’t coaxing, it held a quiet sincerity that settled somewhere beneath my ribs. It wasn’t an order. It wasn’t advice. It was an offering. And that made it harder to refuse. I didn’t answer right away, but something inside me shifted, small,fragile, a crack in the walls I’d built around stillness. Maybe it was the way her words carried no expectation. Maybe it was the way she looked at me, not as the polished version everyone else saw, but as the person behind the stillness, the one hiding beneath her own composure. Or maybe I was just tired of pretending that nothing had touched me.
I nodded finally. “Fine. But if I end up painting a stick figure and crying, we erase that memory forever.”
Aster grinned, her eyes glinting in the pale light. “Deal. But I’m framing it.”
When classes ended, I didn’t stay for coffee. Gwen had suggested the café near the library, the one with crooked tables, chipped mugs, and that perpetual scent of burnt espresso tangled with vanilla, but I’d smiled, mumbled something about work, and left before either of them could ask questions I didn’t have the energy to answer.
The truth was simpler. I didn’t want conversation. Not when my skin still carried the memory of his presence, when my thoughts were still strung too tightly around the cadence of his voice. I needed quiet. Space. Something that didn’t echo him.
By the time I reached home, the sun had already collapsed behind the skyline, bleeding its last color into the horizon until the sky turned the color of dusk-touched ink. The city lights blinked awake one by one, faint halos against the glass, and the world seemed to exhale into stillness. It wasn’t peace. It was the illusion of it, the kind that feels earned through exhaustion rather than calm.
I didn’t bother with the lights as I entered the apartment. The darkness felt softer, more forgiving. My coat slipped frommy shoulders and landed somewhere near the doorway. My bag followed. And the folder—his folder—ended up beside me on the bed, a quiet accusation in beige paper. I stared at it for a while, watching the faint shadows gather around its edges, tracing the indentation of his handwriting through the top page. For a moment, I thought about ignoring it. Pretending it wasn’t there. But I didn’t.
