But then, I thought of Maks.
"The gallery handles all sales," I said instead. "But those are the prices."
The woman nodded. Not offended—if anything, she looked approving. "Do you have more work? Beyond what's shown here?"
"Some." I thought of the canvases still turned to the wall in my apartment. The ones I hadn't been ready to show yet. "Different subjects."
"I'd be interested in seeing them. When you're ready." She pressed a card into my hand. "Meredith Wiles. I collect emerging artists."
She moved on before I could fully process what had just happened.
A collector. Wanting to see more of my work.
The evening blurred after that.
Faces and voices and questions I answered on autopilot, pulling from some reserve of social script I hadn't known I possessed. Yes, I work primarily in oils. No, I haven't shown before—this is my first exhibition. Thank you, that's very kind of you to say. I moved through the crowd like a ghost in my own body, present and distant simultaneously.
I found Maks across the room.
He stood near the Ghost painting, where the crying woman had finally moved on. Not watching me—or not obviously watching. He was talking to someone, glass in hand, looking every inch the sophisticated art patron.
But his eyes kept finding mine.
Through the crowd, past the strangers examining my work, his gaze would land on me like a physical touch. Brief. Checking. Making sure I was okay without hovering, without claiming, without making this night about him instead of me.
Our eyes met.
He mouthed something I couldn't quite catch.
I raised an eyebrow. What?
He did it again, slower. Exaggerating the shapes of the words so I could read his lips across the distance.
Proud of you.
I had to look away.
The tears were threatening—not sad tears, not overwhelmed tears, just the particular overflow of too much emotion in too small a container. I pressed my fingernails into my palms until the urge passed. Breathed in for four counts. Held.
"Lia."
Sophie appeared at my elbow like a vision in blue. Katerina must have been passed to Nikolai, because Sophie's hands were free—one of them landing on my arm, grounding and warm.
"Three red dots already." Her voice was barely contained excitement. "You're selling, Lia."
Gallery shorthand. The small red circles placed beside paintings that had found buyers. Three of my paintings, three pieces of my soul poured onto canvas, wanted.
"Three?" My voice came out strange.
"The Ghost painting sold in the first twenty minutes. Then the nursery scene—the woman who bought it said it reminded her of her own mother and grandmother." Sophie squeezed my arm. "And someone just put a deposit on the midnight cityscape. The couple who were arguing about brushwork."
They'd bought it.
The people who'd cared enough to argue—they'd cared enough to take it home.
I didn't know what to say.
What words existed for this particular moment, this specific collision of fear and hope and something that might have been pride? I'd spent so long believing my work wasn't good enough, wasn't worthy of being seen, wasn't anything more than private compulsion made visible.
