Jules peeled a sticker from their cup—one of Ollie’s, a little cartoon bread loaf with a grin—and rolled the sticky paper between their fingers, staring at the mural. The colors were bolder than they’d intended, but Jules hadn’t bothered to rein themself in once inspiration struck. The wall was honest in a way that made Jules’s chest ache: not perfect, but unmistakably theirs.
“I keep thinking I should feel different,” Jules said at last, voice low, as if the bakery’s clatter might drown out anything too honest. “Like, proud or accomplished. But mostly I’m just…tired. And nervous all the time.” Their thumb flicked the sticker away. It landed in a crack in the sidewalk, a tiny, bright thing in the dust. “The mural will be done in a few weeks, and then what? I have the gallery show, but what if I’m biting off more than I can chew? What if I take my best pieces up there and no one buys anything?”
The confession left behind a raw, hollow echo. Jules couldn’t look at Ollie, not yet. Instead, they let their gaze follow a line of ants winding along the concrete, wishing self-doubt could be swept up as easily as crumbs.
Ollie let the silence settle, unfurling slow and gentle between them. When he finally spoke, it was a soft nudge, not a push. “Do you realize every print you left at the bookstore is gone? Sold out.” He nudged Jules’s side with his knee. “People keep coming in and asking if there’ll be more. Apparently, you’re a hot commodity. The same’s going to happen in Afton, and eventually, we’ll all reminisce about how we knew you when you were a nobody.”
Jules laughed, surprised and a little shaky. “They probably just like the colors. Or think I’m a sad, starving artist.”
Ollie snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not pity. They want more because your work says something. Even when you think you’re just making a mess, you’re making something real. That’s rare.” He let that settle, then added, voice sly, “And you can tell Mr. Gallery Guy that if he asks.”
Jules pressed the heel of their palm to their brow, as if they might rub away the anxieties crowding their skull. “I wish I could believe it. Maybe I’m just scared that if I start believing, it’ll all go away. Or I’ll mess it up.”
For a while, neither of them said anything. The sidewalk warmed under the growing buzz of the day—trucks rumbling down the street, the bakery’s bell ringing again and again as customers came and went. Jules traced a line through the dirt with their shoe.
Ollie tipped his head back against the brick, eyes squinted almost shut. “Is moving out about proving something to Keaton, or to yourself?”
The sudden change in topic threw Jules for a loop. Leave it to Ollie to dig into the actual thing that was worrying Jules.
Jules’s chest tightened. “Both, I think. I’ve never really been on my own. Not really.” It felt risky to say it aloud. “I need to know I can do it. That I’m not just…someone who floats from their parents to a partner, never landing anywhere real. I don’t want Keaton to feel like I’m just there because I’m scared to be alone. I need to know he wants me for me, not just because it’s easy.”
Ollie’s expression softened, no judgment in his gaze. “Have you ever noticed how you only doubt yourself right before you do something amazing?”
Jules huffed, picking at the sidewalk. “At least I’m consistent.”
Ollie grinned, shoving his shoulder into Jules’s. “Or maybe you’re scared. That’s not a bad thing, Jules. If you weren’t worried, I’d worry.”
Jules twisted the paper cup in their hands, nerves jangling beneath their skin. “But what if things change with Keaton? What if I move out and we drift apart? What if being together only works when we’re together every night?”
Ollie was quiet. He let the question live in the air before answering. “Or what if you move out and realize you’re even closer? Sometimes space lets you see what you really have. You taught me that, you know. I always thought I needed to be in the middle of things to matter. Turns out, I like watching from the edges sometimes. It gives you a better view of what’s going on in your life. I think you could use that right now.”
Jules bit the inside of their cheek, thumb hovering over their phone. The urge to text Keaton again, just to see his name flash on the screen, to know how his day was going, was strong, but they didn’t give in. Not yet. Today, they needed to prove to themselves they could stand on their own, even if just for a fewmore hours. It could be a small glimpse of what was to come, of the life they wanted withoutneedingsomeone else to help them fill space.
Eventually, things got busy enough at the bakery that Ollie had to go back inside. Jules didn’t understand the arrangement he had with Megan, but they supposed they didn’t need to. It seemed like Ollie lived his life in this casual state where he got to do whatever he wanted when he wanted, and everyone else went along with it. It felt like the complete opposite of Jules’s own life at times.
Jules was just hitting their stride—brush cutting a clean arc of turquoise across the sky—when it happened. A sharp gust of wind caught the drop cloth, flipping it right into one of the open paint cups. Cerulean blue spilled down the wall in a haphazard line, right over the section Jules had just finished.
For a second, Jules froze. The mural stared back, a streak of blue slicing through their careful sunrise. Panic hit first, rigid and cold. Their instinct was to mutter something sharp, to scold themself for leaving a cup they weren’t using open on the scaffolding. A year ago, this would have wrecked them. They’d have packed up, convinced the mural was ruined.
Ollie ran out the side door of the bakery, likely to make sure the clanging and crashing noises weren’t Jules plummeting to their death. They stopped short when they saw what had happened. “Well, that’s one way to draw the eye,” he said, deadpan. He put down his water bottle and leaned against the scaffold, eyeing the blue streak. “Some artists spend years trying to get that level of drama.”
Jules stared, brush still in midair. “It’s ruined,” they said, voice thin. “I spent all morning getting that quadrant just right. I’ll have to let it dry and try painting over it next week.”
Ollie wiped the icing from his fingers. “Or you could use nature as inspiration and figure out how to work it into the painting. Collaboration with Mother Nature.”
Jules let out a shaky laugh. “That’s not in the plan, Ollie. I had it all mapped out.”
They climbed down from their perch, needing a moment to regroup and figure out how they could save their work so it wasn’t a blight every time they saw it until next weekend. Their shoulders slumped, already mentally checking out for the day. They couldn’t be upset by how much they’d accomplished, even if it wasn’t as much as they’d hoped for.
Ollie nudged their shoulder. “You remember that painting with the purple splotch your mom said looked like a bruise? You turned it into a flower. This is just a bigger version. If you wanted perfect, you’d use vinyl decals.”
Jules exhaled, fighting the urge to be melodramatic. But something had changed. From this angle, they could see how the blue might not belong there, but it wasn’t as catastrophic as they’d feared. Maybe they were just tired of being scared of every mistake.
“Maybe…” Jules squinted at the wall. “Maybe it could be a ribbon of some sort. I can come up with a message to put on it as a reminder to people that life happens between best-laid plans or something like that. Can you clean up the bottom and keep it from turning into messy streaks while I climb up and get the top?”
“On it.” Ollie moved quickly, grabbing the stepladder resting against the wall. He dabbed the base while Jules feathered out the top. They worked together—Ollie freewheeling, Jules methodical—until the streak blended in, less an error than a new idea. The mural suddenly had movement it hadn’t had before. Jules climbed down long enough to grab a darker blue to create the outline that would take it from smear to something intentional.
“See?” Ollie grinned, blue smeared on his wrist. “Happy accidents. Thank the wind.”
