She’s going to dig until she finds a seam and pry. It’s part of why I want her under my roof. I don’t want to dull that. I want it aimed where it doesn’t cut a life in half.
The thought after that one is the one I don’t share with anybody else: I want her inside because part of me wants to control not just who sees her but what she sees, when she breathes, how much she sleeps, and what part of her learns to relax when she understands that the walls I built are not traps. I want to watch her body in a hallway where she isn’t performing and see what it does when she can’t pretend she isn’t affected by good order. It’s not clinical. It isn’t purely sexual either. It’s possession shaped like protection because that’s how I learned to want.
I close my eyes and let the admissions wash through me and back out because if I don’t acknowledge them, they’ll hide under nicer words and make me worse.
I’m done pretending glass is a form of care. It’s distance with a cleaner conscience. Distance doesn’t keep wolves out. Locks do. Proximity does. Occupancy does. Presence does. I built structures to make those things work. I’m going to put her inside one.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass and let it take a degree of heat I don’t need, and speak into the room that listens better than people do.
“You wanted answers,” I say. “I’ll give you immersion.”
The harbor doesn’t answer. The building holds my words like a ward holds breath during a code and then lets them go because air is what keeps rooms from turning into mausoleums.
“No more watching from behind glass,” I murmur, the promise small and final. “Next time, you’ll feel the walls.”
Chapter 17 – Aurora
The rain quits like someone turned off a faucet but forgot to wring the clouds. What’s left is the thin winter light that makes everything look honest: the uneven brush-rings on my table, the smear of teal on the floor I swore I’d scrub last week, the chipped enamel lip of my water cup. The studio smells like last night with a ghost of smoke I can’t decide is in my hair or living in my head because I keep replaying the moment I let him touch me.
I stand over the envelope and don’t touch it. Coffee cools in my hand until the mug goes clammy. The seal saysConfidential – Ward Foundationin black that means business, not romance. My laptop is still open from the small-hours spiral, a search bar full of Ward things that won’t unspool:Sanctuaries locations, pilot sites, residency house floor plan, Mara Patel, safety review not creative control.The screen shows a clean-skinned press page, all polished smiles and “community impact,” no edges to catch a fingernail on.
My phone is face-down at the edge of the table. It’s a field of ignored vibrations: Lila’s late-night ARE YOU UP texts that turned intonever mind, sleepat two a.m., a photo of a dress she swears is“perfect for meetings where you sign things with cameras pretending not to be on.”Jonah’s thread stops hard yesterday afternoon.Something came up. May be out of town for a bit.The absence of him makes the air thinner. I keep wanting to fill it with a good excuse he’d turn into a story. He’s usually a flood. Now he’s a well you can’t see the bottom of.
The envelope waits. I take the palette knife from the jar, wipe last night’s black off on a rag, and slide the blade under the flap. The paper parts cleanly with a sound that always reminds me of small coat pockets tearing when you’ve overstuffed them; something small and private being asked to carry too much.
Heavy cream stock slides into my hand. A letter sits on top of something thicker. The Ward seal feels raised and cool under my thumb. The font is the kind designers use when they need a donor to feel smart.
Dear Ms. Hale,
On behalf of the Ward Foundation…congratulations / distinguished selection / pilot program /exclusive, confidentialartist residency at aSanctuary site/ your work’s “profound ethical relevance.” The sentences march like men who know where they’re going and assume you’ll fall in step.
I flip to the second page.Invitation Terms.The language is what Mara promised:Safety review shall not constitute creative controlin one paragraph that reads like mercy. Three lines down, the“confidential immersion tour”sits like a loaded sentence: We will arrange private Foundation transportation for a site tour next week; due to survivor safety protocols, we ask that you refrain from publicly disclosing this engagement until cleared.There’s an NDA clipped behind it, thinner than the contract from yesterday and sharper where it counts—no descriptions of space, no mention of operational details, no identifiers—which is a cleaner way to sayyou get to see but not show.
The paper weight makes it feel like a prize. The ink smell makes it feel like a summons. I flatten the sheet on the table anyway because I can’t read with it bending in my hands.
My stomach pulls in on itself the way it did when social workers said“home visit”like a treat. A contraction that says the body knows before the brain decides. I catch my reflection in the blacked-out laptop screen: hair scraped in a tie I did without looking, hoodie with a paint constellation Lila calls “fashion if you don’t wash it,” eyes like I didn’t sleep, which is true. The line at my mouth that says I’m not going to be nice because a document arrived with my name on it in embossed letters.
I put the letter back into the envelope for a second because I want it out of sight but force myself to take it out again. The way out is through. I run my thumb overexclusivelike a blind person learning a world I don’t want to belong to. A private car. A confidential site. An escort. A tour of a room he controls. The part of him that’s flattered can go sit in the corner until it learns some manners.
The lock on the front door clicks in that cheerful way it does for exactly two people, and Lila breezes in like she paid rent on the light. She doesn’t knock. The spare key glitters on her chain and says she can buy forgiveness by bringing coffee and bad ideas.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my GOD,” she sings as if she can smell good paper like a shark smells a drop of blood. “Did you open it? Of course you opened it. Why are your eyes doing theI’ve read the terms and conditions and now I need a napthing? Give me.” She kisses the air near my cheek and beelines for the table.
“Boundaries,” I say, because ritual demands it, and step aside. She plucks the invitation from under my hand like a mother bird stealing a breadcrumb from a chick that doesn’t know what it is yet. “Confidential exclusive pilot residency,” she reads, eyes widening. “They did it. They’re actually doing it. Rory, this is—this is—” She runs out of adjectives and settles on a squeal that scares my coffee into a ripple.
“Big,” I say.
“Big,” she repeats. “Like,press big. Likethree zerosbig. Likeyou becoming the person other artists curse lovingly when they have to pretend not to hate your successbig.”
“You are the worst,” I tell her. “And also the only reason I’m not hyperventilating right now.”
“Wrong,” she says, breathless, flipping to the second page. “You are the reason. Because of your art. Which is why we’regoing to get you a blazer that doesn’t look like you stole it from a man who hates color.” She slips into imitation board voice: “‘Ms. Hale, on behalf of the Ward Foundation, we would be honored—’” She breaks character and squeals again. “Do you hear it? The ‘we would be honored’ is donor for ‘we want to be you when we grow up but with more yachts.’”
“It also saysconfidential.AndNDA.Andno public disclosure until cleared.And a private car. And a site tour. It sounds like an honor, but it feels like a cage.”
She glances up and reads my mouth like a barometer. “NDAs are standard,” she says, defaulting to reasonable because she thinks reasonable will soothe me. “These places have survivors. They’re paranoid for a reason, babe. The car is security. The tour is… a lot. Yes. But maybe they realized you’re not a normal grant. They’re moving fast because the press is moving fast. We will manage it.” She taps thesafety reviewclause with a fingernail. “You got your line.Not creative control.If they try anything, I will put on my mean auntie voice that makes interns cry.”
“I don’t want to make interns cry,” I say, reflexive. Then, because telling the truth is the only way Lila can help me, “I don’t want to be in a room where I have to ask the person who made the room to let me out.”
