Then Ghost was there.
Seventy pounds of grey velvet pressing against my legs, his long whippet nose nudging my hand with gentle insistence. He didn't bark—he never barked—just leaned into me with his whole trembling body. He was anxious himself, I could feel it in the fine vibration running through his muscles, but he was determined to anchor me anyway.
Good boy. Good boy. Good boy.
I couldn't say the words out loud, but I thought them as I slid down to the paint-splattered concrete floor. My legs stopped working, or maybe I just stopped asking them to hold me up. Ghost folded himself into my lap despite being far too large for it, all long legs and pointed ears and that ridiculous elegant face that had made me fall in love with him at the rescue shelter three years ago.
I buried my face in his neck.
He smelled like oats—I used an oat shampoo because regular dog shampoo was too perfumed. He smelled like home.
Two minutes.
My breathing slowed. The band around my chest loosened, one degree at a time.
Four minutes.
The sounds were still there—the city never stopped being loud—but they'd receded to background. My brain remembered how to filter again. The car alarm had stopped, or I'd stopped hearingit. The construction continued, but it was rhythm now instead of assault.
Ghost's heart beat steady against my palm. I counted the beats instead of counting my breaths. Easier. More real.
One, two, three, four.
My hands stopped trembling.
I sat on my studio floor with my dog in my lap, and I let myself exist without trying to be anything. Not the expert authenticator. Not the functional adult who paid bills on time and kept her home clean. Not the woman who had everything together because she'd learned to mask so well that most people never saw the scaffolding underneath.
Just Auralia. Just this. Just Ghost's warmth and the fading afternoon light and the slow return of equilibrium.
Eventually, I wiped my face. I hadn't realized I'd been crying, but my cheeks were wet and Ghost's fur was damp where I'd pressed against him. He licked my hand once, twice, then settled his chin on my knee with a sigh that seemed to sayThere. Better now.
"Thank you," I whispered.
He huffed in response. We understood each other, he and I. Both of us too sensitive for this world, both of us determined to survive it anyway.
The painting waited on my examination table, patient as ever. The peasant woman was no longer accusatory. She was just a woman in a wheat field, looking at something I couldn't see.
Tomorrow.
I'd finish the analysis tomorrow.
Right now, I needed to take care of myself.
Byseveno'clock,I'dpulled myself back together. That's the thing about meltdowns—they pass. The world keeps turning, the dog still needs to be walked, and eventually you have to get up off the floor and pretend you're a functioning human being.
Ghost had been walked along the waterfront, his elegant legs stretching into that effortless greyhound lope that always made me smile despite myself. He was built for running, all aerodynamic curves and impossible grace, and watching him move was like watching a living sculpture in motion. We'd gone the long way, past the carousel and under the bridge, letting the evening breeze off the East River wash away the last of the afternoon's sensory residue.
I'd eaten. Reheated soup from Sunday's batch cooking—lentil with cumin and roasted tomatoes, a recipe I'd perfected over years of necessity. I could only handle food preparation when I scheduled it in advance, when I had the energy and the mental capacity to follow the steps without deviation. Sunday afternoons were for cooking. Six meals, portioned into containers, labelled with contents and date. Any therapist would probably call it rigid. I called it survival.
The Repin documentation sat in a neat folder on my desk, ready for me to compile my authentication report tomorrow. The mystery of the too-perfect provenance could wait. The question of what Victor Harmon was really hiding could wait.
Some things couldn't.
I stood in the corner of my studio that I never showed anyone.
Six canvases leaned against the wall, faces turned inward like shy children avoiding eye contact with strangers. My own work. The secret I kept from clients, from the few acquaintances I'd accumulated over the years, from everyone except Ghost and the anonymous strangers on the internet who would never connect this work to my professional reputation.
Eleven days. I hadn't painted in eleven days, and the itch beneath my skin was becoming unbearable.
