I walk into the gallery.
The lighting is the first thing. Warm, precise, sculpted—nothing like the flat fluorescents in my studio. The designer has created pools of light that isolate each piece, giving every work its own atmosphere. Intimate. Like walking through a series of rooms that exist only for the art inside them.
And there, in the entrance position—the first thing anyone will see—is my sculpture.
I stop breathing.
It's transformed. The steel ribs, which looked raw and industrial under warehouse fluorescents, are alive under this light. They glow. The welds catch the spots and shimmer. The reclaimed-wood base is warm and grounded. And the gap—the open space at the top—the light comes through it and falls on the floor in a pattern that shifts as you move, like sunlight through a canopy.
It's beautiful. My piece is beautiful.
I press my hand over my mouth. My eyes are burning and I will not cry, not before the doors open and I have to stand in this room and be a functioning adult.
Tess takes my hand and squeezes. Nish stands beside me, quiet for once.
"Do you see it now?" he says. "Do you see what I've been trying to tell you?"
I nod. I can't speak.
The hand piece is there too, on a pedestal to the right of the main sculpture. Smaller, rougher, the fingers reaching upward. Under this lighting, it looks desperate and tender at the same time.
The doors open at seven.
People arrive in clusters. Coats, scarves, the murmur of conversation. I station myself near my work. Nish circulates. Tess stays close.
Strangers look at my sculpture. Some glance and move on. But some stop. A man in glasses stands in front of it for five minutes without moving. A woman touches one of the lower ribs, then pulls her hand back, and I feel it in my own body.
A collector asks Nish about the hand piece. Nish quotes a price that makes my head swim. The collector nods like it's reasonable.
I excuse myself. In the back room, I press my palms against my eyes and breathe. This is happening.
Tess finds me. "Someone wants to buy the hand piece."
"I heard the number."
"Come back out. People are asking who the artist is."
I go back out. I talk to people. This part is harder—the eye contact, the questions. But the questions are about the work, and I can talk about work. A woman asks about the gap at the top, and I tell her the truth: "It's a question. I don't know the answer yet." She nods with an expression that might be recognition.
I'm starting to breathe normally. The wine helps—just one glass, but it loosens the knot enough that I can smile without forcing it.
Then I see him.
Damien Cross. Near the entrance, moving into the gallery in a dark suit, no tie, the collar open at his throat. He looks like he was designed for rooms like this—expensive, architectural, at ease among objects meant to be looked at.
My pulse does the thing. The stupid, traitorous thing.
He doesn't come to my work first. He moves through the show methodically, giving other pieces genuine attention. I watch him the way I told myself I would. Carefully. Looking for the seam.
He reaches my sculpture.
And everything about him changes.
The shift is subtle—nobody else would catch it. But I've been studying this man's composure for weeks, and I see it the way I see a flaw in a weld: instantly. The controlled surface loosens. His shoulders drop a fraction. His jaw softens. And his eyes go still in a way that isn't his usual deliberate stillness.
It's involuntary. Whatever he's feeling, he didn't plan to feel it.
He stands there for a long time. I watch from across the room, and something shifts in my chest too. He's looking atmy work the way I look at my work. Like it's saying something personal.
